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Senior VP Hildegard Wortmann says BMW's electric journey is just beginning

Anyone who questions BMW's effort or sincerity on electrified vehicles should have a chat with Hildegard Wortmann, the German automaker's senior vice president over product management for automobiles and aftersales. I was fortunate to do just that at the Detroit North American International Auto Show earlier this year. ABG: Where might BMW go with electrified vehicles beyond your i3 urban EV and i8 high-performance hybrid sports car? "That [regulatory] train has left the station" - Hildegard Wortmann HW: I think a big advantage is that we now have two bookends: BMW i [green] and BMW M [high performance]. We can use those bookends to foster the BMW brand in total. Are electrified vehicles the answer to CAFE and European regulations? Is that the future? We don't know, but that [regulatory] train has left the station. To achieve all of these regulations worldwide, there is no way to do it without electrification. That is why the activities of BMW i are not just to launch new products. They are our build-up in competence for learning and gaining experience in electrification. We will use those learnings for the total BMW brand. Technology-wise, we now have a really good understanding of what to do, what not to do, how to work with this and how to get a lot of learnings from the infrastructure and everything that goes with it. And depending on how quickly the market takes off, we can scale it and use it across the range. We will use the competence we will have in vehicle electrification for more than just BMW i. There will be other derivatives and electrification of other products. ABG: Do you see BMW offering pure EVs with larger batteries for greater range? HW: That's a big feature of the Tesla. The question is to find the best balance [of range vs. battery size, weight and cost]. On the i3, we tried to have the right balance between how much range customers need for daily driving and how much battery we put in there. The market will show us. We have over a million kilometers driven by consumers in the Mini E and ActiveE and a fairly good understanding that those people are not driving that much. Putting a really big battery with all that weight into a car that is meant for urban mobility does not make sense. ABG: What about extended-range EVs beyond the i3's optional small range extender engine? "This whole EV movement is in its very early stages." HW: This whole EV movement is in its very early stages.

BMW showing all eight of its 'hommage' vehicles at Villa d'Este

BMW is paying a tribute of sorts to its tribute vehicles by bringing together all eight "hommage" concept vehicles for the first time. BMW will exhibit its hommage cars and bikes at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este, which takes place near Italy's Lake Como this weekend. The vehicles will be shown off in the Padiglione Centrale at Villa Erba as part of BMW's "The Next 100 Years" campaign. BMW's first tribute vehicle was 1997's MINI ACV (Anniversary Concept Vehicle) 30, a two-seat, mid-engined, right-hand-drive car that the automaker produced to pay tribute to the UK brand's past while hinting at what BMW would subsequently do with the iconic badge. The automaker followed with its BMW Concept Coupe Mille Miglia in 2006, and then officially started grouping the concept cars in 2008 under the hommage designation with the introduction of the BMW M1 Hommage. That car marked the 30th anniversary of the original BMW M1. View 17 Photos Since then, there have been the BMW 328 Hommage (2011), the BMW Concept Ninety motorcycle (2013), and the BMW 3.0 CSL Hommage (2015). In addition to paying tribute to the iconic 1970s-era coupe, last year's concept car showed off advances the company has made in its light-weighting efforts. This year, BMW is adding the BMW 2002 and BMW Motorrad R 5 Hommage to the party. The Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este also features about 50 historic cars built between the 1920s and 1980s. For more information from BMW, take a look at the press release below. Tradition as inspiration. The BMW Group's Hommage vehicles come together for the first time at the Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este 2016. Munich/Cernobbio. With BMW's centenary headline "The Next 100 Years" in mind, the BMW Group is bringing together, for the first time, the full line-up of Hommage vehicles unveiled over recent years. They will be joined on display at a special exhibition titled "Hommage and Concept Vehicles" in the Padiglione Centrale at Villa Erba by the models from the past that inspired them. Munich/Cernobbio. With BMW's centenary headline "The Next 100 Years" in mind, the BMW Group is bringing together, for the first time, the full line-up of Hommage vehicles unveiled over recent years. They will be joined on display at a special exhibition titled "Hommage and Concept Vehicles" in the Padiglione Centrale at Villa Erba by the models from the past that inspired them.

Zombie cars: Discontinued vehicles that aren't dead yet

Car models come and go, but as revealed by monthly sales data, once a car is discontinued, it doesn't just disappear instantly. And in the case of some models, vanishing into obscurity can be a slow, tedious process. That's the case with the 12 cars we have here. All of them have been discontinued, but car companies keep racking up "new" sales with them. There are actually more discontinued cars that are still registering new sales than what we decided to include here. We kept this list to the oldest or otherwise most interesting vehicles still being sold as new, including a supercar. We'll run the list in alphabetical order, starting with *drumroll* ... BMW 6 Series: 55 total sales BMW quietly removed the 6 Series from the U.S. market during the 2019 model year. It had been available in three configurations, a hardtop coupe, a convertible and a sleek four-door coupe-like shape.   BMW i8: 18 total sales We've always had a soft spot for the BMW i8, despite the fact that it never quite fit into a particular category. It was sporty, but nowhere near as fast as similarly-priced competitors. It looked very high-tech and boasted a unique carbon fiber chassis design and a plug-in hybrid powertrain, but wasn't really designed for maximum efficiency or maximum performance. Still, the in-betweener was very cool to look at and drive, and 18 buyers took one home over the course of 2021.   Chevy Impala: 750 total sales The Impala represented classic American tastes at a time when American tastes were shifting away from soft-riding sedans with big interior room and trunk space and into higher-riding crossovers. A total of 750 sales were inked last year.   Chrysler 200: 15 total sales The Chrysler 200 was actually a pretty nice sedan, with good looks and decent driving dynamics let down by a lack of roominess, particularly in the back seat. Of course, as we said regarding the Chevy Impala, the number of Americans in the market for sedans is rapidly winding down, and other automakers are following Chrysler's footsteps in canceling their slow-selling four-doors. Even if Chrysler never really found its footing in the ultra-competitive midsize sedan segment, apparently dealerships have a few leftover 2017 200s floating around. And for some reason, 15 buyers decided to sign the dotted line to take one of these aging sedans home last year.