Automotive News Europe - Talk From The Top Supplement - December 2019 - 8

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS EUROPE

TALK FROM THE TOP

Flexible future
BMW r&d chief sees rising demand for diverse, multifunctional powertrains

Meet the tech boss
❚ NAME: Klaus Fröhlich
❚ TITLE: BMW Board Member

for Development

❚ AGE: 59
❚ MAIN CHALLENGE:

Keeping vehicle architectures
flexible until electrification
becomes the predominant
technology worldwide.

lectrification will come but the speed
of adoption will vary greatly. That is
why BMW r&d boss Klaus Fröhlich believes that future vehicle architectures
will need to be flexible enough to rapidly
adapt to tougher global emissions rules
as well as changing customer tastes. He
shared his thoughts on this and more
with Automotive News Europe Associate
Publisher and Editor Luca Ciferri during
multiple conversations this year.
Except for the full-electric i3, BMW
only uses flexible architectures that
can accommodate internal combustion, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric
powertrains. Was this the right call?
A flexible architecture is the best solution for the next five to 10 years, but
clearly if the world turns fully electric,
we will develop dedicated architectures.
How flexible are your architectures?
Ten years ago when we developed the CLAR
architecture that debuted in 2015 with the
7 series, we would have needed to add 800
kg to 900 kg of batteries to offer a BEV vari-

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Too much fast charging could wear
out the battery in just two to three
years, which would make
a customer very unhappy.

ant. This would have killed the architecture,
not to mention the sheer driving pleasure
we aim to offer with every car we make.
We had expected that over a decade battery density could increase by 2.5 times. By
2020, we will be close to 2.7 times. Therefore, in 2021 we will update the CLAR architecture with a new central floor that can
house higher density batteries. This will
permit our plug-in hybrids to travel 80, 100
to 120 km in full-electric mode as well as
allowing us to install a larger fuel tank than
we have in our current plug-in hybrids. Using the updated CLAR also will let us offer
BEVs [battery-electric vehicles] on the architecture because our forthcoming i4 is
basically a battery-powered 3 series.

What is the biggest hurdle to the
mass rollout of full-electric vehicles?
BEVs cost more because of the raw materials to make the batteries. This won't
change. Prices could eventually increase
as demand for these raw materials rises.
What is a BEV's most critical technical challenge?
Charging. Each cell needs an individual
charging cycle to minimize the risk of
overheating. This reduces the life and the
range of the battery. Too much fast charging could wear out the battery in just two
to three years, which would make a customer very unhappy given the high cost
to replace a battery pack.

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2019

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Automotive News Europe - Talk From The Top Supplement - December 2019

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