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BMW Confirms the 588 MPG Prototype But It’s Not What You Think

It turns out the prototype from BMW that is supposed to return 588 mpg (0.4 l/100 km) that we wrote about the other day, is, in fact, real. The German company released an official statement shedding some light into the matter as soon as the rumors started showing up online.
BMW i3 1 photo
Photo: BMW
As we suspected, the car was never supposed to be unveiled to the public. It’s basically an experiment the Bavarians are carrying out right now, to see how the technology can be used on other models later on, in various purposes.

The project is trying to figure out how efficient a car with four seats, a boot of 350 liters and a top speed of 180 km/h (112 mph) can be. As it turns out, it could sip around 0.4 liters of petrol for each 100 km (588 mpg) but it’s not nearly a production car.

Of course, an essential part would be the practicality of the car. No matter what it is made of (CFRP, aluminum, etc.), it has to be usable on a day to day basis. BMW also has quite a number of choices on its hands too.

The car we reported about was rumored to use a petrol engine as a generator for an electric motor. However, a plug-in hybrid model could also be used but with an extremely small internal combustion unit.

Either way, the research BMW is currently performing will bring out innovations for future models, no matter how big or small they are or the shape they will be built in. The rumored i5 will definitely be using them as well as the fuel-cell vehicle that is supposed to come out of their collaboration with Toyota before 2020.
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