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Recharge Wrap-up: BMW's electric truck, London's electric double-decker bus

BMW and transport and logistics company Scherm Group have put an electric transport truck into service in Munich, Germany. The 40-ton truck, made by Dutch manufacturer Terberg, will be used to move vehicle components between BMW's Munich plant and Scherm's logistics center cleanly and quietly on public roads. Using the electric vehicle saves 11.8 tons of CO2 per year. It charges in about four hours, and has a range of about 62 miles — enough to make the trip between the two facilities eight times a day. The truck will be powered completely by electricity from renewable sources. With this project, BMW "is showing that you can succeed on the global market with sustainable products made by innovative companies," says Bavaria's Minister for Economic Affairs, Ilse Aigner. Read more in the press release below. Discount supermarket chain Aldi is offering free charging in Germany. The company has installed fast-charging stations at 50 locations for customers to use while they shop. IKEA also has plans to install free charging at its stores in Germany, and other retailers will likely do the same. While offering free e-juice helps businesses garner the attention of its EV-driving customers, it could also help encourage people to buy electric vehicles. Many are disappointed by Germany's lack of EV incentives, despite the country's goal of having 1 million EVs in operation by 2020. Read more at Automotive News Europe. London will put an all-electric double-decker bus into service this year. London Mayor Boris Johnson announced the electric bus trial at the first ever Clean Bus Summit. The bus, made by BYD, will begin service in October. London has already deployed over 1,300 hybrid buses and retrofitted over 1,400 buses to reduce emissions since 2008. Mayor Johnson's goal is to cut buses' NOx emissions in half by the end of his term in 2016 compared to 2008 levels. Also at the Clean Bus Summit, a number of bus makers and banks committed to helping cities roll out fleets of ultra-low emission buses. Read more in the press release from London, and from BYD. The US Department of Energy (DOE) is funding biofuel projects to the tune of $18 million. The DOE will award the funds to six projects in an effort to reduce the price of algae-based biofuels to less than $5 per gasoline gallon equivalent (gge). The DOE has a goal to get the price of algal biofuels to less than $3 per gge by 2030.

BMW X4 hatches its fastback shape in Shanghai

The day has finally come for BMW to pull the covers off its X4 Concept at the Shanghai Motor Show. The machine brings few surprises - we've already seen an official image gallery from the German automaker, so its exterior shape was well known - but at least now we get to see it with our own eyes, and with the lenses of our very own cameras.
You can clearly see the fastback roofline in our high-res image gallery above, along with the jacked-up stance that allows BMW to call this machine a Sports Activity Vehicle, which basically means "Crossover" to our friends in Munich. We've seen similar vehicle shapes before, most notably in the form of the BMW X6, but also as far back as the 1980s from the likes of AMC.
We fully expect the transition from concept to production to be pretty seamless, so what we see here is, for the most part, what we'll see on the showroom floor in 2014. Feel free to peruse the press release below, but first, be sure to browse through our live images from Shanghai and let us know what you think.

BMW readying competition pack for M5, M6

According to Car and Driver, citing a report in BMW Blog, BMW will be offering performance upgrades - likely called the Competition package - for its M5 and M6 models (including the convertible and Gran Coupe versions of the M6). Both cars will continue to be offered with the normal 560-horsepower, 4.4-liter twin-turbocharged V8 engines, but this new performance pack is expected to add an additional 15 hp to the mix.
No need to worry, however - the upgrades won't simply be limited to a small boost in power. These M5 and M6 models will reportedly get new wheels, black exhaust tips, a more direct steering ratio and reworked suspension geometry which will provide better overall handling. Top speed is said to remain governed at 190 miles per hour, but that these extra improvements will shave one-tenth of a second off the cars' 0-60 times.
No pricing information has been revealed as of this writing, though we imagine it'll likely come at a substantial cost over the current starting prices of the M5 and M6 ($90,200 and $108,350, respectively).