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Plans for an advanced green BMW supercar, the BMW Z10 ED, have been revealed.

The two-seat BMW Z10 ED, a product of the company’s secretive Technik division, will be BMW’s flagship. It is being developed as a showcase for new drivelines, electronic technologies, body construction and auxiliary components.

The Z10’s ‘ED’ suffix stands for Efficient Dynamics, BMW’s suite of fuel-saving technologies that also cut carbon emissions.

Technology proved on the Z10 will trickle down ...Read the full article

All of this sounds very promising and exciting. BMW does know how to make a car go fast and be economical and this appears to be even more astonishing. However, I am slightly worried about the fact that they have given the development work on their new flagship to the Technik division. Their last product, the Z8, was stunning to look at but hopeless to drive. I just hope they will get it right this time.

I am no fan of BMW but if you look at what they are showing here by comparison to instance JLR whom seem to live on a different plant with new 5L Ranger Rovers and Audi rivalling sports cars (??); you would think JLR would have taken a leaf out of the "green" book......green does not have to equal slow

The worst thing is JLR I think now (with the gov. plans) are going to be loaned a load of money....great....then we have to loan them more to develop green tech. even though they have had (h&c referenced) £40m from EU funding for their design centre.

All I can say is that I hope that the £2.3bn is opened up to all companies (UK owned technology companies) and I hope that small automotive companies like Arial (if indeed they and others want to develop their products further) do not get pushed out in favour of non-UK owned businesses like JLR, Nissan, Honda, Toyota etc......

In all honesty, I just hope the government opens the £2.3bn to all UK owned technology firms (automotive or not).

 

 "Drawing on the carbonfibre construction techniques used on BMW’s one-off Z22 show car, plus the extensive use of aluminium chassis components, the BMW Z10 ED is intended to weigh no more than 1400kg."

So it's going to use an aluminium chassis, carbon fibre panels and it will still weigh almost as much as two Elise S1s. What are they making the rest of the components from - lead?

JP 

jprestidge:

jprestidge wrote the following post at Jan 29, 2009 8:47 AM:

 "Drawing on the carbonfibre construction techniques used on BMW’s one-off Z22 show car, plus the extensive use of aluminium chassis components, the BMW Z10 ED is intended to weigh no more than 1400kg."

So it's going to use an aluminium chassis, carbon fibre panels and it will still weigh almost as much as two Elise S1s. What are they making the rest of the components from - lead?

JP 

Since when was 1,400kg 'almost as much' as 1,720kg? A base Elise S weighs 860Kg.

Autocar:

The brake energy regeneration system will be modified to store energy in an additional lithium-ion battery, in effect making the BMW Z10 ED a hybrid.

- so to what purpose will this battery's stored energy serve? There's no mention of an electric motor or some kind of parallel, engine plus electrical auxillary drive, in the write up.

North:

All I can say is that I hope that the £2.3bn is opened up to all companies (UK owned technology companies) and I hope that small automotive companies like Arial (if indeed they and others want to develop their products further) do not get pushed out in favour of non-UK owned businesses like JLR, Nissan, Honda, Toyota etc......

The 2.3 billion is on offer to all UK based Automotive manufacturers and supplier companies and I believe it will have Caveats attached regarding being used for green technology.

Land Rover are well on the way with electric hybrid development, personally I think stripping a nearly a tonnes worth of twin chassis for off-road work that the cars rarely use from the Discovery, RR Sport etc would help a lot more, but then Land Rover would lose its USP. Then again its not a USP thats really working for them at the moment...

Back to the Beemer, and £80k full on sports cars are well out if BMW's comfort zone, but the 7 series doesn't exactly get people excited as a flagship and we all know people's thoughts on the X5 & X6. the main problem is it would probably look like the rest of the range. Whatever happened to the CS project? That was a good looking car and more than capable of being a technological showcase for BMW without them cocking up another sports car.

It all sounds like R8 jealousy to me.

horseandcart:

Since when was 1,400kg 'almost as much' as 1,720kg? A base Elise S weighs 860Kg.

 

If you had read the post properly you would have seen that I stated that it was nearly twice the weight of an Elise S1, not an Elise S, which is a series 2 car with a completely different engine and gearbox. The S1, in original form, weighed 725kgs.

 JP

jprestidge:

If you had read the post properly you would have seen that I stated that it was nearly twice the weight of an Elise S1, not an Elise S, which is a series 2 car with a completely different engine and gearbox. The S1, in original form, weighed 725kgs.

Apples and pears.You're criticising the lardiness of a not-yet-in-production car against an out-of-production car that goes back ten years or more in concept. To stretch a point it would be like comparing the lardiness of a current 6-series against an original svelte-ish 6-series. Times move on, as Lotus's own weighing scales show and 1,400kg for a 400bhp übercar is not at all bad when compared to the more typical 1,7-1,900kg of today, for such cars. I think that's the point.

I think your missing the big picture here, now that the recession is biting and even big car companies like BMW are hurting, all of a sudden eco/hybrids are starting to appear. This now shows a brighter future for performance cars as well as main stream bread and butter cars, lower emissions, better fuel consumption, even more recycleable!.Yes there will be few people with he odd £80K to spend, but some of the technology on show in this car could and should be made available on all their motor cars.No instead of moaning about the price of the car we should be glad thanks to a bit of government help that eco friendly cars are going to appear sooner than later, after all the gravy train is gone now and car companies need you and me the car buyers to buy their products. the next 18 to 24 months are not going to be easy but to move out of it we've got to spend a bit so why not start with cars?, if i can get in the future months a car with a 2 litre turbo with say 250BHP low Co2 and low to mid-forties mpg and five seats i will have what i want out of a car. 

I wonder if this will become another 'new NSX', and BMW will raise our hopes before announcing that there is no business case nearer the time.

horseandcart:

Apples and pears.You're criticising the lardiness of a not-yet-in-production car against an out-of-production car that goes back ten years or more in concept. To stretch a point it would be like comparing the lardiness of a current 6-series against an original svelte-ish 6-series. Times move on, as Lotus's own weighing scales show and 1,400kg for a 400bhp übercar is not at all bad when compared to the more typical 1,7-1,900kg of today, for such cars. I think that's the point.

I don't agree: a 997 911 weighs around 1400kgs, and has four seats (just about) and a fairly standard steel monocoque. I would have thought that BMW could have done better with an aluminium chassis and composite panels. A Pagani Zonda, for instance, is significantly lighter than that.