Like almost every other MINI E user I'm very interested in the upcoming ActiveE, the next step of BMW towards a serial production electric car.
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| Concept ActiveE at BMW Welt Munich |
The MINI E is just an experiment that has to provide electric drive experience to a big number of people showing the advantages of an electrical drivetrain - but it has some obvious deficiencies due to its prototype status and its short time realisation.
The next step is the electrified BMW ActiveE based on a 1-Series Coupe. This car should be well engineered and it is a direct predecessor of the procect i /MCV (final name will be revealed at 21. February) using a first version of the new developed electric motor and batteries. Further the concept of operating the car and the display of information should satisfy in a BMW-typical manner.
Accordingly the expectations in this car are very high and it is clear that it has to be almost at a serial production standard with no major and almost no little deficiancies left.
BMW revealed news of the car and through the ActiveE-Facebook-group I found some very informative links:
BMW ActiveE press release
BMW ActiveE video
Based on this information, I made some comparison to the MINI E:
One of the biggest deficiencies of the MINI E is the lack of an active thermal managenent of the batteries causing significant influences on range, power, regenerative braking and charging.
So in consequence the ActiceE has a liquid thermal management system that should eliminate those impacts on the battery and should provide a reliable and constant range.
Further you can precondition the battery and the cabin when plugged in to the grid. This are the features every MINI E driver dreams about.
The remote control via smartphone may be a helpful feature. The precondition, however, is solely available with the car plugged to the grid.
Charging:
The charging port of the car meets the SAE J1772 standard so that public charging stations in the US can be used without an adapter. The European cars need a separate charging cord anyway which must have a SAE J1772 connector at the one end and a IEC 62196-Type 2 connector at the other end.
An estimated charging time of 5 hours indicates a higher battery capacity.
MINI Es total battery capacity is 35kWh, 80% of this as a usable capacity results to 28kWh. With an approximate charging rate of 7kW at the wallbox, this leads to the often mentioned 4 hours charging time for the MINI E.
5 hours charging result in a usable battery capacity of 35kWh. In case this is just 80% of the total, the ActiveE may have a battery capacity of about 44kWh.
Recuperation:
The MINI E as a front wheel drive has no problem with some additional load on the front wheels during deceleration.
The ActiveE as a rear wheel drive has the handicap of a decreasing load on the rear axle during deceleration. This means that the effect of the regenerative braking particularely at strong deceleration has to be adjusted dependent on the driving situation to ensure stability and safety.
So modifications on the cars electronic DSC were necessary to deal with the effects of regenerative braking.
However I wonder whether the regen is as strong and constant as in the MINI E.
Energy efficiancy:
As I said in a older post, I like the "braking with the gas pedal" concept of the MINI E and the strong effect of the regenerative braking. And I generally favour this behaviour over a "sailing operation" where the car is just rolling on unabated.
However, in some cases at highway and even urban driving, the unabated rolling would be the most energy efficient way of operating the car. Driving the MINI E means that in this case you have to find a position of the driving pedal that is either not accelerating the car nor slowing it down by regen. But you do not exactly know where this position is nor have a feedback when you reached it. So normally there will be a slight energy consumption or regen effect left even with the energy consumption indicator showing a neutral position.
Activating and deactivating the unabated rolling via buttons, paddels or gear levers is not a practical solution for quick changing driving conditions. This would also implement that the cars general behaviour is dependent on the actual mode activated which may cause difficulties in some situations.
The described "gliding mode" activated at an intermediate driving pedal position sounds like a really good and practical solution for this problem. As you can see in the video, the ActiveE's energy consumption indicator goes to the neutral position in a way that may give you a sufficient feedback when the car operates in this mode. I think this is a very useful advancement and enables the combination of acceleration, gliding and braking in just one pedal.
The addition of a button that reduces some basic settings of the drivetrain and the electrical consumers to a more energy efficient mode may also be an useful option when range is an issue or as a general setting when the effects are bearable.
Display:
Compared to other EVs and EV studies the instrument panel is very "analog" and does not feature any displays, diagramms and graphics. Like the MINI E it seems that the original instrument panel is just a little bit modified to show some different type of information, but it is not upgraded or completely reengineered.
The graphical display of the information is solely available on the cars navigation screen.
I hope I ever get a chance to make a testdrive with this car...
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