BMW ActiveE

The BMW Sustainability Hackathon, held at BMW’s Group Technology Office in Mountain View, Calif., was designed to give local software developers, entrepreneurs, EV drivers, and sustainability advocates the opportunity to meet each other, and dream up technology systems that, in the most general sense, promote sustainable transportation. Among the ideas: an app that allows EV drivers to anonymously email each other using license plate numbers as identification.

Car shoppers visiting a dealership to buy a conventional gasoline-powered car know what to expect from the vehicle when they drive it home: things like routine maintenance, life expectancy of major components, and how they will refuel it. These topics rarely need to be discussed at the point of sale anymore. But electric cars are different.

Last week, I highlighted the things I like about my BMW ActiveE. Now, I’ll discuss the things I don’t like as much, and list the technical problems that some cars have faced. While I’ve avoided any serious problem, many others that have leased the ActiveE have not had as much luck. Some ActiveE drivers have endured extended service visits to get the cars back on the road.