BMW ActiveE 2012

BMW ActiveE  2012

We get a lot of reader mail every month. Whereas “You’re idiots for not picking the same car I would have chosen in that comparo,” “You’re on Hummer’s [or some other car company’s] payroll,” and “Dude, sweet hair,” are the most common messages, we also hear occasional chiding for using both “engine” and “motor” to describe the internal-combustion devices that power cars.
After driving BMW’s new 1-series-coupe-based ActiveE, we can say we’re not the only ones to do so. To get going in this pretty standard-looking 1-series—well, aside from the circuit-board exterior graphics—you have to push a button that, just as in a gas-fired 1-series, is labeled “Engine Start.”
Start What?
The thing is, the ActiveE doesn’t have an engine. As readers love to point out, it has a motor. Where once there was an engine there’s now a huge battery pack about the size of a piece of luggage you’d try to carry on and fail to fit into the overhead bin. Protected in frontal collisions by sturdy bracing that takes up roughly the front half of the engine compartment, the underhood pack is one of three in the ActiveE. BMW’s description of batteries being located underhood, in the transmission tunnel, and in the space vacated by the fuel tank had us imagining lithium-ion cells squishing out of the car like marshmallow between the grahams in a terminally overstuffed s’more. Not true. The rear pack takes up a mere portion of the fuel tank’s former dwelling, and the trans-tunnel bundle is tucked neatly above a flat tray that covers most of the car’s undercarriage.

.It’s Notah Motah (Uh, Yeah, It Is)
The engine—er, motor—is at the rear axle, which it drives through a one-speed gear-reduction transmission. The controlling electronics perch on top of the motor, and the resulting bundle juts into the trunk and reduces capacity from 10 cubic feet to 7. Golfers rejoice: The hump is offset to the passenger side, leaving the left-side pass-through usable for a bag of clubs.
BMW outsourced the drivetrain in its last electric experiment, the MiniE, but the ActiveE’s was developed in-house. Aside from consolidating the batteries into a single pack—and anything else BMW thinks it needs to change following its ActiveE experience—it’s largely what you’re going to see in the upcoming purpose-built i3 electric car. That bodes well for the i3, particularly since it will cart around some 1300 fewer pounds. The ActiveE is a porker: At an estimated 4050 pounds, it weighs nearly 700 more than the last 135i we tested.
To help you make your tee time when golf Saturday starts out with a pounding hangover and a detour for pancakes, though, the electric motor makes a maximum of 168 hp. Being an electric motor, every last drop of its 184 lb-ft of torque is available from 0 rpm, and BMW says the car should hit 60 mph in about nine seconds. Top speed is governed at 90 mph.

BMW ActiveE  2012

BMW ActiveE  2012