Josef Kerscher, President of BMW Manufacturing, meets with US
President Obama today
Munich/Washington, DC. – July 29,
2011…
The BMW Group is in agreement with the
direction outlined today by President Obama and his Administration on
proposed new fuel economy standards for the period 2017 – 2025.
The proposal is a result of extensive negotiations between the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department of
Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
(NHTSA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and will result
in one national standard for regulating future greenhouse gas
emissions and fuel economy.
Josef Kerscher, President, BMW Manufacturing:
“Regulatory consistency is critical to synchronize product
development with government rules. This way, companies have the time
necessary to develop technologies that fulfill the requirements while
remaining profitable and sustainable. The path from 2017 to 2021
is now clearly marked and we are ready for the challenge.”
The BMW Group supports the approach the US Government has taken,
integrating the potential of numerous technologies to play a role in
reducing GHG emissions, thus providing flexibility to achieve the
ambitious targets that have been proposed. All implications of the
upcoming regulation can be assessed only when all the details of the
regulatory framework are finalized.
The BMW Group can build upon its extensive technological expertise
and innovative know-how in developing new environmentally friendly
technologies such as those that have already enabled the company to
reduce its carbon output and increase fuel efficiency over the past
several years.
In Europe, the BMW Group has achieved a CO2 reduction of 30% between
1995 and 2010. That reduction is the largest among premium auto
manufacturer. Such achievements have enabled the BMW Group to be
ranked as the most sustainable automotive company in the world for the
past six consecutive years in the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.
The BMW Group has achieved these impressive results through its
longstanding EfficientDynamics principles. EfficientDynamics applies
to every model within the company’s worldwide fleet. Since
1995, EfficientDynamics has introduced many industry-leading
technologies such as Valvetronic throttle-less engine control,
on-demand coolant and hydraulic pumps for reduced parasitic losses,
and High-Precision Direct Injection. In 2009, BMW added two 50-state
BMW Advanced Diesel models for an unprecedented combination of
performance and low emissions. In some 2010 and 2011 models, BMW
introduced Brake Energy Regeneration, Auto Start-Stop technology and
two BMW ActiveHybrid models. This fall, BMW will introduce a new
generation four-cylinder engine to the US market in several models.
This innovative engine promises to increase performance over the
six-cylinder engine it replaces while reducing CO2 and fuel
consumption by 20%.
In addition to these efforts, the BMW Group has completed a two year
consumer test with 450 electric MINI E vehicles both on the East and
West coast of the US in order to gain valuable insight and experience
for the next steps in electric mobility. Coincidently, earlier today
in Frankfurt, BMW unveiled concepts of the BMW i3 and i8 that will
start series production in 2013 and 2014 under the new BMW i
brand. This clearly demonstrates that electric mobility will be
an integral part of the BMW Group’s drive towards of the CO2
reduction strategy and will help the US Government in its commitment
towards a cleaner environment.
