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German Government Funds BMW’s Green Technology Research

The Bavarian Motor Vehicle constructor already had a testing facility in Leipzig, Germany for quite a while now. However the German government decided to chip in on something new.
BMW i3 1 photo
Photo: BMW
The automaker recently decided to join forces with TU Chemnitz ( University of Technology ) and Stadwerke Leipzig municipal utility to conduct a study regarding long-distance commuters in 15 BMW ActivE Electric Vehicles.

Funding from the federal government will be part of the “Electromobility Connects” project, which is based in the Bavaria-Saxony region. The testing will take place in five phases of 12 weeks during which daily commutes of between 40 and 100 kilometers will take place. The commutes will be tracked and the test drivers will have to install charging stations at home or at work.

This isn’t BMW’s first project developed with Chemnitz University. A previous project was used to create a special data logger for vehicles. These data logs were used to better understand some issues regarding battery life and usage. During those tests, BMW collected data from over 16 million km recorded on its Mini E and about 5 million km with it’s second electric model, the ActiveE. However, those test were held in the US ( in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Hartford and San Diego) and data was just simply transfered to the University.

Regarding future endeavors, BMW is sure to continue it’s research with a third EV project, one that is going to be focused on the i3 further along this year. The i3 will become BMW’s first series production electric car.
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