Archiv der Kategorie: e-mobility

2017 BMW 5 Series teased in new official video

The 2017 BMW 5 Series has been teased in a new official video, showing it in undisguised form for the first time ahead of its unveiling next month.

The uncovered car is only partially shown in the video, but the short glimpse shows the new LED tail-light design for the first time.

The lights feature a similar design to those of the latest 3 Series, but they’re housed within a body that looks slightly more muscular than that of its smaller sibling.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClOMyWl3aaE

Earlier spy shots of the 2017 5 Series have shown what the model will look like in saloon and estate guises. The exterior of both bodystyles, while undoubtedly evolutionary, give the 5 Series a more aggressive demeanour.

We know from our recent drive in a 2017 5 Series prototype in 530d xDrive form (pictured below) that the model is slightly larger than the outgoing car. The increases in length, width and height are small and aimed at increasing rear seat accommodation.

The new car will share its body structure with the 7 Series. The structure is known internally as CLAR – ‚cluster architecture‘ – and uses more aluminium for its floorpan and bulkheads than the skeleton of the outgoing F10 5 Series. There’s also more use of aluminium for castings, helping to trim weight by as much as 100kg, despite the growth in size.

Powering the new model will be a familiar choice of turbocharged four and six-cylinder engines, with a new plug-in petrol-electric powertrain joining the ranks.

Lower-powered cars will use BMW’s latest B47 diesel and B48 petrol four-cylinder units – all in 2.0-litre form, like today’s F10 model.

BMW’s new B57 diesel and B58 petrol six-cylinder engines will offer more power. These units use a standardised 500cc individual cylinder capacity for an overall volume of 3.0 litres. One of the diesels will gain an additional electrically driven turbo to improve low-down grunt, upping peak output towards 390bhp.

The most potent non-M model will receive a newly upgraded 444bhp 4.4-litre V8 petrol engine, first seen in the 750i.

The new 5 Series will also inherit hybrid technology from the 330e, 740e and X5 xDrive40e. The hybrid system is made up of a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine with an electric motor mounted within the gearbox and a lithium ion battery located in the floor of the boot. The system can run in full electric model for more than 20 miles.

The M5 model will use an updated version of the current car’s 4.4-litre V8 with a likely power output of more than 560bhp.

The new 5 Series will be revealed in October and will go on sale next year. Its rivals will continue to be the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, Audi A6 and Jaguar XF.

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/2017-bmw-5-series-teased-new-official-video

BMW is planning a major restructuring of its executive board and a shift in its electric mobility strategy

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Premium automaker BMW is planning a major restructuring of its executive board and a shift in its electric mobility strategy, according to information obtained by Handelsblatt.

BMW declined to comment.

The automaker plans to merge its marketing and sales operations for the brands Mini and BMW and replace Friedrich Eichiner as chief financial officer.

Nicolas Peter, a close confidant of Chief Executive Harald Krüger, will take over the company’s finances from Mr. Eichiner. Mr. Peter currently serves as BMW’s head of sales in Europe.

BMW is also planning major changes in its electric mobility strategy to keep up with U.S. rival Tesla. In addition to the fully electric “i3” models, which have been in production since 2013, BMW will also offer fully electric versions of the Mini, the BMW3 series and the X4 SUV, which is built in the United States.

The supervisory board is expected to approve the new electric models during a two-day meeting at the end of the month.

BMW faces increasingly stiff competition from Tesla in the electric car market. The U.S. e-car maker has received 400,000 pre-orders for its Model 3 sedan alone. BMW’s i3, on the other hand, has struggled with falling sales in the first half of the year.

Read the full story in Handelsblatt Global Edition on Monday

https://global.handelsblatt.com/breaking/exclusive-bmw-plans-board-shakeup-change-in-electric-cars-strategy

Audi is reportedly building an electric luxury sedan to take on Tesla by 2020

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Audi Prologue Avant Audi

Audi is getting serious about electric cars.

The automaker’s chief executive has given the OK for an all-electric, luxury sedan to take on Tesla’s Model S, according to a report from Autocar.

The car, which may be called the A9 e-tron, will have three electric motors, a range of more than 300 miles per charge, and will also feature level four autonomous driving, according to the report.

Stadler told Autocar that Audi will have three EVs in its line-up by 2020 and by 2025 it plans to have 25% of the cars it sells will have batteries.

In January, Audi committed to building an all-electric SUV based off of its e-tron quattro concept, which was revealed last September at the Frankfurt Motor Show. The company plans to begin production on the SUV by 2018.

Stadler said that the production version of the e-tron quattro will go from 0 to 62 miles per hour in just 4.2 seconds and will have a top speed of 131 miles per hour.

One of the e-tron quattro’s most impressive functions is its inductive charging feature. This allows users to re-charge the vehicle by parking it over a re-charging plate, instead of having to plug it in.

According to the report, the new electric sedan will also have the inductive charging feature, as well as an autonomous parking function that enables the car to drive itself to a parking spot with a charging plate.

Audi E-tron quattro Audi’s e-tron quattro concept.Audi

Audi isn’t the only car maker ramping up its push into the electric car market.

Porsche, which is a sister company of Audi, plans to roll out a production version of its all electric car concept, the Mission E. Mercedes-Benz, Aston Martin, Volvo and others are also planning to have their electric cars ready by 2020.

Tesla isn’t just getting competition for its higher-end vehicles, though.

The electric car maker’s first mass market car, the Model 3, will also be going up against General Motors Chevy Bolt. And the Bolt, which is expected to go into production before the end of this year, will have a year head start on the Model 3, which isn’t expected to go into production until late 2017.

http://www.businessinsider.de/audi-a9-electric-sedan-will-take-on-tesla-2016-8

LAND YACHT – Mercedes’ next vehicle is a 20-foot luxury electric Maybach that you’ll “want to drive yourself”

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The future of luxury cars isn’t all about flashy vehicles that drive themselves, at least that’s what Mercedes and Maybach want the super-rich to believe.

The Daimler-owned company unveiled a new electric car concept, the Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6, on Aug. 19. The “6” actually represents how many meters long this car is, just shy of 20 feet—which is a pretty standard size for speedboats, if not sports cars. Mercedes showed off the concept in a bright shade of red, but if it repainted the Vision in black, it probably would not look out of place in a mid-1990s Batman feature.

The Vision 6 has a massive 750-horsepower engine which has a range of about 200 miles on a single charge, and can hit 60 mph in under 4 seconds, according to Bloomberg. It can also charge up to a range of about 60 miles in five minutes—much more efficient than the average quick-charging cellphone—so you’ll never have to worry about range anxiety as you drive from Davos to Monaco, or wherever the one percent need to get to these days.

The Vision Mercedes-Maybach 6 interior — The interior kind of looks like a futuristic boat, too. (Mercedes-Benz)

While this concept car won’t be available for recent Maybach customers like Jay-Z to buy, it’s supposed to reflect what a high-end Mercedes will look like in the next decade or so, Bloomberg said. (Past Maybach models, which Mercedes relaunched as a brand in 2012, have cost between $100,000 and $1 million.) Mercedes executives likened the concept to a prized family heirloom, suggesting that it’s more than just a piece of technology that you’ll passively enjoy for a few years, and then move on to the next shiny new thing.

“This is a car you want to drive yourself,” Gorden Wagener, Daimler’s head of design, told Bloomberg. “This is something you pass to your children, like a Leica camera or a chronograph watch. Driving has been a pleasure since 130 years and will stay that way another 130 years.”

Although Mercedes itself is working on some (equally luxurious) self-driving cars, it seems that the company, sees the long-term future of cars at least in some part controlled by humans. Then again, Ford’s CEO Mark Fields previously told Quartz that he doesn’t see producing a self-driving Mustang anytime soon. Perhaps some slice of humanity will always just want to go really, really fast, in really, really expensive cars.

http://qz.com/762480/mercedes-next-vehicle-is-an-20-foot-luxury-electric-maybach-that-youll-want-to-drive-yourself

Ford Says It’ll Have a Fleet of Fully Autonomous Cars in Just 5 Years

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FORD

MORE THAN A century after introducing the Model T, Ford hopes to once again change how the masses move.

The company announced this morning that it will have thousands of fully autonomous vehicles in urban car-sharing and ride-hailing fleets by 2021. To achieve that goal, the company will double, to 300, the number of people at its Silicon Valley research center and add 60 autonomous vehicles to the fleet of 30 already deployed there.

The five-year timeline isn’t terribly aggressive. Google, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz see autonomous vehicles on the road by 2020, and Chinese tech giant Baidu says it will have the technology in 2019. But none of them has made promises as specific as those Fields made today. “We see the upcoming decade for the automobile really centered around the automation of the automobile,” CEO Mark Fields says.

Many automakers already offer limited automation in vehicles like the Tesla Model S and Model X (which have had trouble), and the Mercedes E-Class (that one’s a bit confusing). But Ford, like Google, wants nothing less than full autonomy, a designation the Society of American Engineers calls “Level 4.” Fields says the fleet in Silicon Valley won’t even have steering wheels or pedals.

Ford seems to have most of the pieces needed to do that. In July, it invested in Civil Maps, a Berkeley, California, startup that makes the software needed to turn LiDAR data into maps robo-cars can read and automakers can update. The automaker just invested heavily in LiDAR manufacturer Velodyne, a bid to cut make the technology far more affordable—the spinning bucket atop each Google car costs about $85,000. And it signed an exclusive licensing deal with Nirenberg Neuroscience to use that company’s machine vision and deep learning tech. Israeli startup Saips will provide further help there with technology that helps robo-cars identify pedestrians, garbage cans and the like.

The big question is who will run the fleet. GM has signed on with with Lyft, while Uber is doing its own research, and Apple—which won’t confirm it’s developing a car—invested $1 billion in Chinese ride-sharing service Didi. Ford doesn’t have a dance partner, but, Fields says, “We have lots of options, and we talk with everyone.”

Field’s won’t say what the car might look like or where you’ll see them beyond “dense urban areas.” But the commitment underscores how serious Ford is about autonomy. “It fits very nicely with who we are as a company,” he says. “Autonomous vehicles could potentially have the same impact on society that Henry Ford’s moving assembly line had.” The company that made the Model T ubiquitous wants to do the same with autonomous tech.

https://www.wired.com/2016/08/ford-autonomous-vehicles-2021/

Mercedes-Benz uses influencers to reach millennials

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One big challenge for most luxury brands today is how to appeal to a younger demographic without losing the extravagant feel of the brand. For Mercedes-Benz, that means creating compelling content on social — especially collaborating with influencers — to amplify what the brand is and why millennials need a Mercedes-Benz.

This year, Mercedes-Benz initiated a program called “MB Photo Pass” where it’s working with videographers, photographers and around 25 social media influencers like @loki_the_wolfdog across Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest and YouTube.

In April, Mercedes-Benz and its agency Razorfish teamed up with YouTube influencer and extreme-sport videographer Devin Super Tramp (whose YouTube page has around 4.2 million subscribers) to create a video called “The Ultimate Race!” featuring its 2017 C-Class Coupe racing against a parkour athlete and a radio-controlled car at a parkour obstacle course. The video has generated more than 2.3 million views to date.

“The more people who want the car, the more exclusive it becomes. And social helps draw more young consumers to Mercedes-Benz,” said Mark Aikman, general manager of marketing for Mercedes-Benz USA. “We want to create content that people feel ‘wowed’ by, making their online experience emotional and powerful as if they walk into an actual showroom.”

Of course, Mercedes-Benz doesn’t always follow the luxury vehicle and extreme-sport aficionado storyline — sometimes emotions play a big role in the automaker’s video content. In March of this year, Mercedes Benz — in collaboration with production company MSP — created its first 360-degree video experience for its 2017 GLS sport utility vehicle. In the video, the Instagram-famous wolf dog Loki runs next to his owner Kelly Lund when he drives a Mercedes through mountains laden with snows and evergreen trees, presenting the landscape in Crested Butte, Colorado through a wolf dog’s eye-level view.

“Influencers can help us tell stories that we cannot do by ourselves,” said Aikman. “In the campaign with Loki, for example, we like the connection between him and Kelly and we don’t need to tell the specifications of the new model because the film shows how great it is.”

But that’s not enough – at least, not on Instagram. Tony King, CEO of agency King & Partners and a car-racing lover, thinks that the Mercedes-Benz Instagram account is “a little boring and conservative.”

“More video,” said King. “I want to see the cars moving and hear the engines. I want to see less of a car parked at 45-degrees with the front wheel turned.”

https://www.instagram.com/p/BIaCnWrgajI/embed/captioned/?v=7

King also thinks that Mercedes-Benz should show how it can improve followers’ life first or take them to places that they would never go to, and then show them the actual cars. For example, it would be cool to have a video series around a road trip to somewhere cool with interesting people’s quotes and videos, then show the cars they are in and the details on those cars that make those trips more memorable, he said.

Still, from January to date, Mercedes-Benz was 72 percent more associated with Instagram in digital content engagement — it means how often people are reading articles or other types of content mentioning both Mercedes-Benz and Instagram. For example, the content could be a picture from an Instagram influencer featuring Mercedes-Benz — than Audi, and 97 percent more associated with Instagram in digital content engagement than BMW, according to digital marketing company Amobee.

Mercedes-Benz is ranked as the second-highest luxury brand with 13 percent share of luxury shopper interest, up 24 percent compared to the first half of 2015, according to automotive marketing company Jumpstart’s June 2016 research. It’s only second to BMW that holds 15 percent share of shopper interest as of June, but it’s down 7 percent compared to the first half of 2015.

“Right now, Mercedes-Benz is doing pretty well across segments, especially in sport utility vehicles and crossover utility vehicles. We found that 41 percent of Mercedes-Benz buyers are very interested in these two categories,” said Libby Murad-Patel, vp of strategic insights and analytics for Jumpstart.

While some marketers think that they threw too much money at influencers, Mercedes-Benz will continue “positioning its products with influencers’ audiences,” said Aikman.

“We have always tried to find influencers who want to work with us and want to share their adventures in our products,” he added. “Mercedes-Benz is always focused on authentic stories told with the products and, in most cases, told from the influencer’s point of view.”

Legendary car designer Henrik Fisker wants to build a self-driving car

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Fisker Force 1 Side The Force 1. VLF Automotive

Legendary car designer Henrik Fisker launched his comeback with the Force 1 in January — a $230,000 luxury sports car.

But Fisker isn’t planning on stopping with the Force 1. He’s already designing the next car to sell under his new company, VLF Automotive, based in Detroit. And the car designer is interested in pursuing electric cars again and ones with autonomous features down the road.

„What is the next vehicle out there in terms of electric cars and autonomous driving?“ Fisker told Tech Insider. „I’m spending a lot of time in that area and what that means in the future.“

Fisker said he’s interested in designing electric cars, as well as vehicles with autonomous features, but he declined to comment on whether or not he would ever actually pursue either one.

Before the Force 1, Fisker got his name in the car industry as a designer for BMW, Ford, and Aston Martin. He did initial design work for the Tesla Model S sedan. But when he broke off to design a hybrid dubbed the Fisker Karma, Tesla filed a suit alleging he copied some of Tesla’s technological innovations for the Karma.

An arbitrator eventually ruled in favor of Fisker. But Fisker Automotive went bankrupt in 2011, making the Karma a distant memory. Although Fisker Automotive went bankrupt, the Karma is a big reason Fisker is interested in entering the electric car market.

A new kind of electric car

„I’m passionate about it because when I brought out the Fisker Karma, it was clear people thought, ‚Well, an electric car, even with a range extender, can be sexy and amazing,'“ he said. „Obviously, we had a major battery problem and that’s what brought Fisker Automotive down. But today we have the battery technology that has gone a lot further.“

Fisker said he wants to design a car that isn’t a traditional electric, four-door sedan. Fisker said he would want to „make a completely new car, with new proportions and a different design.“

„We still haven’t seen any cars take advantage of the electric powertrain in terms of how you proportion an electric vehicle versus traditional vehicles,“ he said. „Yes there’s electric cars, but they haven’t really done it in a beautiful way.“

Fisker would also want the electric car to „truly move the needle,“ he added.

That sounds similar to what secretive, electric car start-up Faraday Future is going for. Faraday Future teamed up with Aston Martin to make „a range of next-generation connected electric vehicles.“

Faraday Thumb21 Faraday Future’s concept car. Rob Ludacer

The start-up is also using a Variable Platform Architecture (VPA) — a modular platform designed specifically for electric vehicles. The technology allows the chassis to be easily adjusted by changing the lengths of the rails and other structures:

modular

Using a VPA allows Faraday Future more flexibility in designing a variety of cars.

Autonomous cars will completely change car design

Electric powertrains, though, aren’t the only technology reshaping car design.

Fisker said that autonomous cars excite him because they open up all kinds of new opportunities for new ways to design a car.

For example, self-driving vehicles allow car makers to totally rethink the interior design of a vehicle. Fisker didn’t give specifics, but we’ve seen automakers experiment with building sofasand TVs into the interiors of autonomous cars.

„No one right now has any particular advantage in this space because no one has done it before. No one truly understands what the consumer wants,“ he said. „I just generally think the technology is enabling new ventures to take a new shot of what a car is.“

So when could we see a car from Fisker with autonomous features? Fisker is remaining hush on the subject.

„I’m definitely thinking about it,“ he said. „And it’ll probably be in the next two to three years that we’ll see the biggest changes in the car industry, maybe ever.“

http://www.businessinsider.com/henrik-fisker-interest-in-autonomous-electric-cars-2016-7

The 15 coolest concept cars revealed this year so far

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Automakers are pushing bold, innovative ideas forward with their latest concept cars.

Faraday Thumb23 Rob Ludacer

Whether it’s a car with nothing inside but a sofa and TV or an electric car resembling the Batmobile, concept cars give us a glimpse of how technology will shape the future of driving.

1. Volkswagen unveiled a microbus concept meant to give a modern spin to the classic Volkswagen bus at the Consumer Electronics Show in January.

Volkswagen

Called the BUDD-e, the electric car gets up to 373 miles of range.

The doors open with a simple wave of the hand, and you can control the console’s interface by making hand gestures.

Volkswagen

You can also use the interface to control things like the temperature and lighting in your house.

2. The big unveiling to come out of the Consumer Electronics Show was Faraday Future’s concept car, the FFZERO1.

Rob Ludacer

It can go from zero to 60 miles per hour in under three seconds.

Four motors placed over each wheel give the car a top speed of 200 miles per hour. It’s also capable of learning the driver’s preferences and automatically adjusting the internal settings.

Faraday Future

Although Faraday Future plans to release a production car in 2020, the FFZERO1 is just a show car.

3. LeEco, a Chinese tech company, unveiled its Tesla killer concept car at the Consumer Electronics Show.

Facebook/LeEco

LeEco is also partners with Faraday Future.

Called the LeSEE, the car has a top speed of 130 miles per hour. It also has an autonomous mode.

LeEco

The steering wheel will retract back into the dashboard when the car is in autonomous mode.

4. The Lincoln Navigator concept car comes with giant gullwing doors. It was unveiled at the New York Auto Show in March.

Ford

We won’t be seeing those doors in the production model of a Lincoln Navigator anytime soon, unfortunately.

The six seats inside can be adjusted 30 different ways, and there’s entertainment consoles on the back of four seats so passengers can watch TV or play games.

Ford

There’s even a built-in wardrobe management system in the trunk so you can turn your car into part walk-in closet.

5. BMW’s Vision Next 100 was unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show in March. It comes with an AI system called Companion that can learn your driving preferences and adjust accordingly in advance.

BMW

The side panels of the Next 100 are made of carbon fiber.

The steering wheel will retract into the dashboard when the car is in autonomous mode.

BMW

There’s also a heads-up display that will show information about your route on the windshield.

6. BMW added to its Vision 100 line in June. Here we see the Mini Vision Next 100 that was built for ridesharing.

BMW

The car can recognize who you are when it comes to pick you up and will greet you with personalized lighting.

The steering wheel will shift into the center of the console when the car is in autonomous mode.

BMW

The BMW also comes with a heads-up display that will show information about your route on the windshield.

7. The last addition to the BMW Vision 100 line is this futuristic Rolls-Royce.

Rob Ludacer

The Rolls-Royce is also completely autonomous.

Because the car envisions a completely autonomous future, the interior is composed entirely of a two-person, silk sofa and a giant OLED TV.

Rolls-Royce

There’s also a secret compartment in the car for storing your luggage.

8. McLaren unveiled a stunning concept car called the 675LT JVCKENWOOD at the Consumer Electronics Show.

McLaren

The McLaren 675LT comes with a wireless networking system so it could communicate with other cars on the road about traffic and accidents.

The car comes with a steering wheel that looks like a video game controller!

McLaren

The controller is meant to help the driver control the heads-up display while in motion.

9. Italian automaker Pininfarina unveiled a beautiful hydrogen-powered concept car at the Geneva Motor Show.

Pininfarina

The car, called H2 Speed, refuels in just three minutes.

It has a top speed of 186 miles per hour and can go from zero to 62 miles per hour in 3.4 seconds.

Pininfarina

The car can regenerate energy from braking.

10. Audi unveiled its connected mobility concept car in April. There’s a longboard integrated in the bumper in case you want to roll from the parking lot to work.

Audi

It conveniently pulls out when you need it and is stored in the bumper when you’d rather travel on foot!

The car’s infotainment system can calculate the fastest route based on real-time data and will suggest using the longboard if that seems faster.

Audi

It will even show you the best parking spot to make the longboard portion of your commute shorter.

11. Aston Martin showed off a beautiful concept car in May called the Vanquish Zagato Concept.

Aston Martin

All of the body panels in the Vanquish Zagato are made of carbon fiber.

Aston Martin made the car with Italian auto design company Zagato. The two have worked together since 1960.

Aston Martin

There’s not too many details on this car since it’s just a concept, but it sure is pretty.

12. Jeep showed off a crazy looking wrangler in March at the Easter Jeep Safari, an off road rally.

Chrysler

That is a monster car.

The Wrangler Trailcat concept had to be stretched to 12 inches to accommodate the massive engine providing 707 horsepower.

Chrysler

It comes with racing seats from a Dodge Viper.

13. Toyota unveiled a strange-looking concept car dubbed the uBox to appeal to Generation Z in April.

Toyota

The uBox is all-electric.

The interior is entirely customizable so it can transform into a mobile office or fit more people.

Toyota

It also comes with a nice curved glass roof that lets plenty of light inside.

14. French automaker Renault showed off a stunning, high-tech sports car dubbed the Alpine Vision in February.

AutoBild

The Alpine Vision is a two-door, two-seater sports car.

It can go from zero to 62 miles per hour in 4.5 seconds

AutoBild

The interior is decked out with a LCD gauge cluster in the center console.

15. Lastly, Croatian automaker Rimac designed a stunning, all-electric concept car for the Geneva Motor Show.

Rimac

Called the Concept_One it can accelerate from zero to 62 miles per hour in just 2.6 seconds.

The Concept_One can reach a top speed of 185 miles per hour.

Rimac

It has a regenerative braking system that allows it to generate energy whenever it brakes.

http://www.businessinsider.com/coolest-concept-cars-revealed-in-2016-2016-6

Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, and Honda lead the autonomous car race

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Automakers have spent the majority of 2016 announcing their plans for self-driving and the future of automation, but while some just begin to prototype systems, others are soaring ahead of the pack.

Research and advisory firm Lux Research has charted the 12 major automakers on business execution and technical value, and noted if the company has a positive or negative view on the advent of self-driving.

Lux Grid Auto Self Driving

Toyota, Honda, and Mercedes Benz are ahead right now, as you can see in the graph above. Tesla and BMW aren’t far behind, but the report claims that the two companies have a “wait and see” attitude to self-driving, rather than actively pushing for its arrival. The attitude is based on investments, partnerships, and demonstrated capability.

Daimler Trucks and Hyundai are the other two automakers in the top right on technical value and business execution. German automaker Audi has a decent technical value rating, but lacks the investment or business execution its German rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz have achieved.

The two major automakers in the U.S.—General Motors and Ford—have similarly poor outlooks. The two companies are lower than all European rivals on technical value and business execution, apart from Renault-Nissan, which is far behind the group.

Self-driving car R&D market is white hot

General Motors has started spending heavily in the self-driving market, investing $500 million in a partnership with ridesharing app Lyft and purchasing Cruise Automation for $1 billion in March. Ford, on the other hand, may be looking to partner with Google to fix some of its self-driving shortcomings.

The PSA Group and Fiat Chrysler are both not on graph, despite both working on self-driving or partnering with tech companies. PSA Group, which controls Peugeot and Citroen, is currently the only firm allowed to test self-driving cars in France. Fiat Chrysler recentlypartnered with Google, providing them with 100 vans, and may have plans to create similar partnerships with Uber and Amazon.

While it is worrying to see companies like Renault-Nissan and Audi not invest in self-driving as much as rivals, we are still three years away from any concrete legislation that allows driverless cars on the road. That is enough time for any automaker to change their attitude towards self-driving.

http://readwrite.com/2016/06/21/autonomous-car-leaders-tt4

BMW Concept 100 – The Ultimate Driving Machine

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BMW turns 100 this year, and although the company has a rich history, it is looking forward with a barrage of extreme concepts to prove its will remain relevant for the next 100 years. The company owns Rolls-Royce, which recently offered a glimpse of luxury in the 22nd Century, and Mini, which got a futuristic makeover. And now BMW peers into tomorrow and sees a sleek four-door with flexible skin, scissor doors, and an interior that flutters in three dimensions to communicate with you.

01 The exterior will look suitably futuristic

The silhouette of the Vision Next 100 Concept doesn’t look too out-there, and the lines bring to mind the sedan-coupe mashups you see today. Open the doors, which move upward (like this) instead of outward (like this), and the conceptual craziness steps up a notch. Of course the open on their own, as soon as you approach. The car, which presumably runs on electricity, or perhaps hydrogen, or maybe something not yet discovered, starts with a press of the ginormous BMW logo on the dashboard.

Credit: BMW

02 The car will be capable of driving itself

Today, BMW drivers can choose Eco, Comfort, and Sport mode. In the future, they’ll choose Ease or Boost. Feeling lazy? Select Ease mode and let the computer do everything. Want to see if BMW is once again the Ultimate Driving Machine? Boost mode lets you take the wheel. Whatever the mode, nearly 800 tiny triangles throughout the cabin flutter like birds, communicating with the driver. It sounds nuts, but the video makes it look like an effective way of conveying information. Besides—it’s a concept. It’s not like it actually has to work.

Credit: BMW

03 But the human can still take over

Swiping and scrolling has all but killed buttons and knobs, so it’s no surprise you won’t find any in BMW’s concept. Instead, you’ll handle everything through “The Companion,” which looks like a big, glowing gemstone on the dash. It uses colored light and voice commands to …. do something. Choose Boost mode and The Companion retracts and steering, er, bar pops out of the dash. And this being the future, the windscreen is a giant heads-up display.

Credit: BMW

04 It’s super slippery

The wheels sit at the far corners of the car because some things won’t change in 100 years. They’re covered with a flexible skin that BMW calls Alive Geometry, a fancy way of saying the bodywork moves as the wheels turn. (BMW’s explored this before with a shape-shifting car made of fabric.) Keeping the wheels covered improves aerodynamics, and BMW says it’s pretend car would have a drag coefficient of 0.18, making it much slicker than the sleek BMW i8.

05 And super green

To make the body pliable enough to change shape, BMW uses more of the tiny triangles that came alive when you got in the car. BMW believes the days of punching panels out of steel will end, and automakers will use recyclable materials and composites made with, say, random stuff that might otherwise go in the trash.

Credit: BMW

06 Copper is the new Rose Gold

BMW chose that shiny copper hue to underscore the idea that vehicles of the future “should appear technical yet still have a warmth about them.” Whatever. The color may be the coolest thing about this car.

Credit: BMW

07 The car is a sketchpad for the direction of the company

BMW built its reputation on quick cars that are a hoot to drive. (See also: 507, 2002, various M3s, etc.) But as the industry moves inexorably toward its autonomous future, that will become less important to most consumers—and far more important to those who see driving as more than a means of getting from Point A to Point B. This concept, as crazy as it is, shows BMW, like other automakers, hopes to serve both audiences.

https://www.wired.com/2016/06/bmw-vision-next-100-concepthttps://www.wired.com/2016/06/bmw-vision-next-100-concept