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Monday, November 8, 2010

BMW announces its first hybrid supercar



By Steven Wagers

According to autonews.com, BMW is planning to release their own hybrid supercar. This comes just a few months after another German carmaker (Porsche) decided to go ahead with plans to make their own hybrid supercar, the 918 Spyder. It certainly seems as though this might be a growing trend amongst carmakers.

The BMW Vision Efficient Dynamics prototype is powered by a 3 cylinder turbo diesel engine and an electric motor mounted over each axle. BMW says the car can do 0-60 in less than five seconds (4.8) and that it will only produce 33g/km of CO2.

BMW says on their website that the menacing looking beast churns out 328 horsepower and can get moving at up to an electronically limited speed of 250 kmph.

However you're not going to be able to get that far using only electricity. BMW says it can go about 50 kilometres running purely on the electric motors before running out. That said, when the car is using both the diesel engine and the electric motors it can get close to 700 kilometres due to what BMW calls "intelligent interaction" between the different motors.

BMW has yet to put a price tag on the Vision Efficient Dynamics prototype but has set the year for its release to be in 2013.

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