Green light for BMW eDrive Zones in nearly 80 European cities
A week doesn’t seem to go by without new projects relating to electric mobility being announced: several European countries have pledged to ban internal combustion engines – especially diesel cars – from as early as 2030, so car makers are scrambling to stay ahead of developments. And it’s not just...
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A week doesn’t seem to go by without new projects relating to electric mobility being announced: several European countries have pledged to ban internal combustion engines – especially diesel cars – from as early as 2030, so car makers are scrambling to stay ahead of developments.
And it’s not just about the vehicles, but about the whole road infrastructure, and the impending arrival of completely autonomous driving.
BMW has just announced a new digital service dubbed BMW eDrive Zones which it says is making a further contribution to better quality of life in urban areas. “The unique function offers new options for making the most out of the capabilities of BMW plug-in hybrid models for locally emission-free driving in city traffic,” they say.
BMW eDrive Zones trigger an automatic change to the purely electric operating mode as soon as the vehicle enters a designated area, eg. low emission zones and are now available in various BMW plug-in hybrid models.
The Group is planning to introduce a points loyalty programme later in the year, with which drivers of BMW plug-in hybrid models will be rewarded with attractive premiums via a point system. Every electrically driven kilometre counts, and within an eDrive Zone, twice as many points can be collected.
By collecting a sufficient number of points, participants can gain access to rewards like free charging volumes on BMW Charging.
This innovative service brings together the BMW Group’s expertise in the fields of electromobility and digitalisation, both fields of development that are components of the future D+ACES (Design, Automated Driving, Connectivity, Electrification and Services).
The technology approach developed for the eDrive Zone service would also be conceivable for plug-in hybrid models from other brands, and there is the option of defining an eDrive Zone for each metropolitan area. This could give cities a comparatively simple way of promoting electromobility even further and thus contributing to improving urban quality of life.
The new functions create additional incentives to reduce fuel consumption and emissions when driving in urban traffic. For the driver, the increasing share of electric driving also contributes to a reduction in operating costs.
A purely electric trip results in significantly lower energy costs than using the combustion engine as is shown by comparative calculations for current plug-in hybrid models.
This applies particularly to city traffic, where electric power consistently achieves a higher level of efficiency than a petrol or diesel engine.
The development of the BMW eDrive Zones service is based on a pilot project in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam. There, 50 drivers of plug-in hybrid models were given access to the GPS coordinates of defined inner-city areas via a dedicated app. When entering this area, the drivers were asked to change to the purely electric driving mode MAX eDrive.
After only a few months, it was already apparent that the drivers involved in the pilot project had covered around 90 percent of all routes within the Rotterdam eDrive Zone in purely electric mode.
The eDrive Zones service, now standard in various BMW plug-in hybrid models, uses geo-fencing technology via GPS. Switching to the purely electric driving mode is automatic. When the service is activated, each available eDrive Zone on the navigation map is graphically highlighted in the Control Display. There, drivers also see a notice that the vehicle automatically switches to ELECTRIC mode as soon as it reaches an eDrive zone.
The plug-in hybrid vehicle is locally emission-free for as long as the charge level of the high-voltage battery allows within the eDrive zone. If the energy reserves run out, the activation of the combustion engine is also shown in the Control Display.
The benefits of the service can be experienced in a large number of major European cities and their low emission zones: all 58 cities and regions in Germany that have already defined a low emission zone were taken into account.
Besides that, there are 20 other core areas of major cities in Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. The list will be expanded in the future to include additional countries and cities, so that the electric driving shares of plug-in hybrid models can be increased in a steadily growing number of city areas.
Cyprus has a lot of catching up to do!
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