Filed under: Biodiesel, Diesel, EV/Plug-in, Hybrid, BMW, AutoblogGreen Exclusive, New York Auto Show
The fact that the brand-new prototype three-cylinder, 1.5-liter gasoline engine from BMW finds itself in a 1 Series is almost accidental. Heidelinde Holzer, who works on powertrain predevelopment, powertrain functions and powertrain integration, told AutoblogGreen her team simply took the cars that were available. After all, when you're working on engines that are not destined to go into any vehicles in the near future - this has been a four-year project already - it's okay to test them in whatever mule you've got access to. The first production vehicle that will use the three-cylinder is the upcoming i8 plug-in hybrid, which isn't going to arrive until the first half of 2014. BMW didn't allow us to play around in one of those, so we had to make due with our 1 Series prototype test drives yesterday at BMW's Woodcliff Lake, NJ, headquarters.
Under a sky that alternated between bright and threatening-to-rain, two red 1 Series zipped around the BMW campus - we were not allowed to take them on public roads - between technical sessions about the engine, the upcoming four-cylinder 328d diesel and BMW's new suite of apps. According to what we saw, future Bimmers are going to get a lot more efficient and a whole lot more connected.
BMW 3-cylinder prototype engine sits pretty in 1 Series, will be better in i8 plug-in hybrid originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Wed, 27 Mar 2013 08:27:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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