The efficient BMW Active Tourer concept Video

The efficient BMW Active Tourer concept Video Transcript

-Hey everybody. This is Antuan Goodwin with cnet.com, on the floor at the 2012 Paris Motor Show. We're in BMW's booth taking a look at their Concept Active Tourer. Now, their Concept Active Tourer is a five-door concept. It's a little bit bigger than the 1 Series five-door. So you've got a little bit more space in the back for passengers. You've got more headroom, more shoulder room, more of everything back there. There's also more storage space in this vehicle. But it's a concept, so there's gotta be some conceptive stuff going on. Now, under the hood, you've got a 3-L turbocharged engine that's powering the front wheels. Now, this is the first for BMW brand, a front-wheel drive vehicle, but it doesn't end there. There's also an electric engine that powers the rear wheels. So, when you get a gasoline engine at front and electric engine on the back, basically, it's an all-wheel drive hybrid. It's a plug-in hybrid also. You can plug this thing up. Charger is lithium ion battery and it will get about 19 miles of pure electric range before the gasoline motor has to jump in to help it. You can also switch back and forth between those. Total system output, both of those engines working together, is about 190 horsepower and that gets you to about 62 miles per hour in just under 8 seconds. So, it's reasonably quick. Now, that also gets you a combined European cycle fuel economy of about an estimated 94 miles per galloon. That's pretty good in my book. Now, no telling as to whether we'll actually see something like this on the road. I mean it's a concept. It's kind of pie-in-the-sky. But I think BMW is trying to ease us into two things, the idea of sort of a 1 Series GT that's a little bit bigger than the 1 Series, but just a little bit smaller in the 3 Series 'cause they've been doing that with the 3 and 5 Series and then also to kind of get us used to the idea of a front-wheel drive BMW by easing us into the idea with an all-wheel drive hybrid. Well, this has been Antuan Goodwin with cnet.com on the floor at the 2012 Paris Motor Show taking a look at the BMW Concept Active Tourer.