The huge leaps in technology of the past five years have opened the doors to an array of technologies that up until that point were not even dreamed of. Be it start/stop, brake energy regeneration or the much older turbocharger, they all try to do the same thing: squeeze as much power out of the power source.
Whereas up until now all these technologies were hardware related, the future belongs to more intelligent solutions. As a car maker that has opened more than enough doorways to the future for the industry, BMW is trying to place itself, once again, in the front.
With all the electric and turbocharged powertrains in mind, BMW is considering a wide range of features that would make its cars more fuel- or energy-efficient. The most important of them is the so-called predictive engine management, a series of technologies that would allow the car to plan ahead on its energy requirements, depending on the type of drive it will undertake.
More precisely, reports Autonews, citing BMW executives, the system will use the departure and arrival points to calculate the locations of hills, high-speed highways and low-speed city streets. This would allow it to properly regulate the flow of fuel or engine coolant in advance. It would also allow the car to properly use the energy in the batteries.
"We are really excited about this," Tom Baloga, vice president of engineering for BMW of North America, told the source. "The vehicle will know from the map what kinds of hills and highway stretches you will experience. We are very close to offering this in production."
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