Peugeot has launched the world’s first diesel-electric hybrid, despite the world telling us it can’t be done.

The costs!, says the world. The technical challenge!, it points out. The woes of running a diesel engine on short-burst cycles!, it chucks in. Petrol is OBVIOUSLY the only way to make a hybrid, went conventional logic. Until Peugeot disagreed with it.

So, how? Well, the PSA Hybrid4 system has been made affordable by locating it on the rear axle rather than the front (thus separeating it from the engine completely), and cleverly using propriety parts when doing so. Parts bin components stretch to 508 rear suspension on the 3008 that launches it, with the entire system designed to be a plug-in module rather than something to be built in.

Basically, Mulhouse builds the modules and ships them to Sochaux, where they’re bolted on during production in a process not unlike fitting rear suspension itself. It’s even done on the existing 3008 production line, so a Hybrid4 can roll down in between a 1.6 HDi 112 and a THP Turbo 165.

Peugeot says it’s so modular can be fitted to any C-sector and D-sector model. 3008 and 508 RXH we’ve seen: regular 508 Hybrid4 is on the way. The 5008 may be a challenge with its seven seats, but as the Hybrid4 gear takes up no extra space in the 3008 (not even the batteries encroach, unlike as in the Toyota Prius/Auris HSD), Peugeot may already be onto it.

Peugeot v Honda

Incidentally, Honda said one of the remarkable achievements of the Jazz Hybrid was the fact interior space remains identical to the regular car. That’s why it could only hit a 104g/km CO2 target, rather than 99g/km.

Well, Honda, here’s a Peugeot hybrid with no less interior space too – that also meets 99g/km and thus gets free road tax over here. OK, it’s a CO2 target-hitting trick pulled with smaller alloys and no standard sat nav (presumably to save weight), but even so: does this mean, Honda, you’ve been outsmarted by Peugeot?

I digress. Peugeot won’t with the latest 308, though. While it could design a diesel-electric hybrid version of the current family hatch, it won’t. That model is too close to the end of its lifecycle, so hybrid will have to wait until the next one. Peugeot did hint at the expected CO2 figure, though: 89g/km from this 2.0-litre HDi 163 setup.

There also won’t be a hybrid 207, despite the technology being entirely scaleable. The benefits would be far too small, said Peugeot, and supermini cars are already very low on CO2 without the need to add expensive hybrid – which, besides, would be a proportionally much higher cost.

Clever drivetrain

One very clever aspect of the technology is the separation of engine and gearbox. Not only does this make it far, far easier to develop and build (no whizzy Toyota CVT gearbox here, for instance – just a regular Peugeot robotised manual whose lurching shifts have been smoothed significantly by giving a burst of electric motor torque during gearshifts – very clever), but it also means different engines can be used.

Here, we have a powerful, highly-tuned 2.0-litre. The integrated starter-alternator it’s fitted to is also available on the 1.6 HDi. Fuel economy potential of a 1.6 Hybrid4 150 (with the electric motor providing the power boost), then? In a mid-range Peugeot  308 hatch that may already duck below 90g/km in 2.0 Hybrid4 200 guise? Potentially mega.

The component that’s most significant of all, and the reason why other makers haven’t yet done diesel hybrid, is Peugeot’s integrated starter-alternator. This has been uprated for its new application, from 3KW to 8KW – to ensure it can supply charge to the battery. In normal hybrids, the trick gearbox takes care of this, diverting power away from the engine to create a generator function.

Peugeot can’t do this as the electric motor isn’t built in. So, instead, the starter turns into a generator meaning that, whenever the driver is on the power, electricity is generated and transmitted, via four beefy electrical cables, from front to rear.

Oh, and the four-wheel drive function doesn’t disappear if the rear batteries are flat, either. The starter-alternator can generate charge to power the rear motor direct, ensuring the four-wheel drive function is always available, rather than being charge-dependent. Truly, truly ingenious.

The elegance and relative simplicity of Peugeot’s remarkable hybrid system is brilliant. Have other makers simply tried to be too clever, which is why they’ve not done a diesel hybrid before? Peugeot has, instead, been logically astute – and, in doing so, brought to market the first mainstream hybrid that actually works on the road as you’d hope.

Believe me, it’s not going to be the only time we see the hybrid concept debuted here by Peugeot…

+ Stop-start or start-stop?

+ BMW ECO PRO

+ From the Porsche archives: Carmine Red and the Panamera GTS

The biggest influencer of fuel economy is the driver. Low rolling resistance tyres save 3%; auto stop-start can save 5% or more. 

The driver, however, can save 20% – and it is this massive potential, greater even than the sum total of every Bluemotion-style pack of eco changes to date, that BMW is seeking to tap into.

The new BMW 1 Series marks the debut of ECO PRO, an interactive function of iDrive that teaches greener driving and rewards for doing so (it’s also coming to the new 3 Series too). We’ve had such systems before – Fiat’s eco:Drive, Ford and Honda’s ‘petals’ and so forth – but BMW’s is the best yet.

More than just an electronic ‘badge’ that are usually an intriguing gimmick for a few weeks but then forgotten, ECO PRO offers tangible benefits that offer the potential for game-changing developments in the future.

It is opt-in: drivers must select ECO PRO from the BMW drive select switch (‘anti-Sport’ as one engineer dubbed it). Doing so does three things:

• Selects bespoke settings within engine ECU

• Optimises electric load

• Displays ECO PRO screen

The electric load saver function is meritorious in itself. No mainstream maker has fitted a function that dials back the electrical consumption of accessories such as electric seats and heated rear window: a bit like the National Grid cutting power delivery to your house.

The interactive element is the snazzy bit. All the time you are consuming less fuel than the car’s combined average, the famed BMW economy gauge (now electronically represented) dives into the blue zone. Blue means you’re saving fuel – and the deeper you can get it in there, the more fuel you’re saving.

There’s more. To make it tangible, an additional readout, also in blue, shows how many miles more you’re getting from the tank. This is the ingenious part: the more you take it steady, the more miles you eek out.

It is reset each time you refuel, so is stored even if you turn the engine off. Thus, a permanent incentive to save fuel and claw the miles back. A savings account that’s in your hands – so if you want a ‘free’ 50-mile’ trip on the weekended, ease off to claw back the miles.

There’s yet more. Don’t get the idea of eco driving? ECO PRO to the rescue – it flashes up tips and hints on the screen as you go, based on an analysis of driving style. It knows that heavy braking is not efficient, nor is going fast, nor is accelerating hard, nor is holding onto gears.

All of this stuff may be obvious to us, but it’s not to all: a few lines of text saying as much, as the driver commits the eco error, will soon give them the idea.

And as it’s all part of the challenge, if they’re engaged by saving fuel, they’ll be keen to take the messages on board.

Is this gamification of saving fuel, with an active feedback loop to provide tuition, the future of saving fuel? The driver is the single biggest key to big, big gains in fuel efficiency: are we to see more onboard games in the future, feeding a real-time PlayStation Network to turn drivers into eco-inspired gamers?

+ BMW 1 Series power meters

+ VW Golf R dials’ cool blue point

+ Diesel drives Peugeot sub-130g/km CO2 win

Stop-start or start-stop: which does your car have?

Like so many titles in the car world, each car brand has a different way of describing, er, stop-start.

Now, logic to me says it should be stop-start. The function stops the engine at traffic lights, then starts it.

Not everyone agrees, though. Here’s the official wording preferred by the UK’s leading car makers. As you can see, there’s quite some variety there:

Audi: start-stop

BMW: Auto Start Stop

Fiat: Start&Stop

Ford: Auto-Start-Stop

Jaguar: Intelligent Stop/Start

Kia: Intelligent Stop and Go

Land Rover: Intelligent Stop/Start

Mercedes-Benz: ECO start/stop

Peugeot: Stop and Start

Renault: Stop and Start

SEAT: Start & Stop

Skoda: Stop/Start

Toyota: Stop & Start

Vauxhall: Start/Stop

Volkswagen: Start-stop

Consensus? Start-stop seems to be favoured by the German brands, but stop-start is preferred by the Brits and the French. Not sure what this tells us, other than we Brits have one form of logic and Germans have another.

Does it matter? Well, it does if you’re a fledgling subeditor and want to create SEO-friendly consistency across your work. From now, then, I’ve decided to call it stop-start: hyphen rather than forward slash, in the logical way of how it works rather than the preference of the world’s leading premium brands.

Clients I write for may have other preferences, which I’ll of course fall in line with… but how many people refer to stop-start in their style guide – and, if so, what’s the favoured order?

Do YOU have a preference? Share ‘em if so and let’s see if we can get a start a standard…

+ Ford adding smart stop start

+ Land Rover Defender: the great green potential

+ 2012 Jaguar XF engineering: did you know?

Green cars and eco sub-brands have to be a staple of any right-thinking manufacturer these days. 

If you’re not showing off your eco credentials with a special badge applied to your very greenest, most environmentally-aware models, you are, it seems, a little bit nowhere.

These green sub-brands are a sort of BMW M/Audi RS/Mercedes AMG version of an eco car: the most hardcore, highest-green-performance planet-savers. If you like green cars, these are your poster boys.

Each manufacturer has different standards for its greenest cars, but the principles are generally similar: dictate a CO2 benchmark they must dip beneath, stipulate a range of technolgoies such as stop-start that they must be fitted with, maybe throw in the fact they should be built in an ISO 14001 facility, and bingo: one green sub-brand set of standards.

But boy, they’re confusing. What’s an Econetic and what’s an Ecomotive? Who likes eco2 and who goes for EcoDynamics?

Well, salvation: here is an easy user guide to all the eco brands on the market. Coming up will be an explanation of all the standards each has to adopt.

For now, let’s keep things simple. Want to know what’s the greenest Renault and the most eco Ford? Well, here’s them all… updated as more come to market!

Audi: TDIe

BMW: EfficientDynamics

Citroen: Airdream

Ford: Econetic

Hyundai: Blue Drive

Kia: EcoDynamics

Mercedes-Benz: BlueEfficiency

MINI: Minimalist

Mitsubishi: ClearTec

Nissan: Pure Drive

Renault: eco2

SEAT: Ecomotive

Skoda: Greenline

Toyota: Optimal Drive

Vauxhall: EcoFlex

VW: Bluemotion AND Bluemotion Technology

Volvo: DRIVe

+ Land Rover Defender: the great green potential

+ EV 101: electric car basics

+ How Honda justifies the Jazz Hybrid

Volvo’s Concept You again showed off the firm’s Scaleable Platform Architecture at the 2011 Frankfurt IAA.

SPA will underpin most of the brand’s future models. Instead of creating unique platforms for each car, Volvo has created a modular system that ensures the same components can be used across all model lines.

Rather like a big LEGO kit, it dramatically cuts the amount of bespoke components for each model and ensures Volvo has the ability to develop new cars almost at will.

Want a bigger car than car X? SPA allows the wheelbase to be stretched, an common electrical systems, driveline, suspension and other parts to be used. Bingo: one car Y is yours.

It’s little short of brilliant and will mean that although initial investment is high, future products will be cheaper and, crucially, faster to develop.

However, while it’s radical, it’s not the first time Volvo has done this. Indeed, we can still buy one of the original Volvo ‘scaleable platform’ cars, in the form of the XC90…

Volvo SPA MkI

Volvo developed its first highly flexible platform architecture when it was also an independent, before Ford ownership. The 1999 Volvo S80 debuted it, and it would appear in many more core Volvos over the years.

The platform was dubbed P2 and was designed to offer both standard and long-wheelbase variants, plus front-wheel and four-wheel drive capability.

The full line-up of P2 cars is impressive:

• 1999-2006 Volvo S80 (P23)

• 2001-2009 Volvo S60 (P24)

• 2001-2007 Volvo V70 (P26E)

• 2002-2007 Volvo XC70 (P26L)

• 2003-date Volvo XC90 (P28)

P2 was clearly well-considered, and ensured an independent company could still offer a range of cars able to take on German premium rivals. Indeed, the ingenuity of it is perhaps what attracted Ford to Volvo in the first place.

Ford was so impressed, it actually used a variation of P2 in its own cars, the D3 platform. It lost some of the higher-cost componentry such as aluminum suspension arms, but still, hundreds of thousands of Ford 500, Ford Taurus and, in newer D4 form, the Ford Flex and Lincoln MKT.

Of course, with Ford ownership came the opportunity for Volvo to tap into readymade platforms. So, for the replacement Volvo S80 and Volvo V70, Ford’s C/D architecture was utilised: the same that also underpins the Land Rover Freelander, Ford Mondeo and Ford S-Max amongst others.

But now, Volvo is independent from a large European-focused maker again. It has the might of Geely behind it, but Geely does not yet make cars able to take on the best of the Europeans and US brands. So, Volvo must start again, with an all-new platform structure.

Hence, SPA. It’s returning to the smart construction it was using before Ford bought it, and is set once again to enjoy the flexibility of a platform architecture designed from the start to be flexible and, well, scaleable.

Other makers are doing it: the Saab Phoenix and Mazda SkyActiv-Chassis use a similar philosophy. But Volvo is closest with a production version, and many a production engineer is watching on with interest.

There’s a lot of clever engineering going on in Volvo right now. SPA is one of the headliners: but how much will legions of S80s, V70s and, indeed, the XC90 that’s still being made in ever-impressive quantities over at Torslanda help the engineers bring SPA to life? More, I suspect, than we perhaps realise.

+ Volvo man gets cool

+ Volvo English Channel Ocean Race

+ How Ford would have made a Rover

There are only so many things you can call a car without losing all sense of rationality.

Back in the day, it was L, GL, GLX, Ghia. Throw in a Popular at the lower end for those who didn’t want air vents and heated rear windows. Add in a Ghia X at the higher end, for those who liked Connolly leather, electric sunroofs, air con and trip computers. Easy.

Today, German manufacturers have ensured SE is a premium must-have, as is some sort of Sport-flavoured variant, with various others dotted in between. For some volume manufactures, it’s a couple of well-known names that define their ranges: everyone knows Ford and Zetec, Vauxhall and Expression, Renault and Dynamique, Volkswagen and Match.

Many have tried the obscure through the years (Renault Privilege? Rover iXL? Citroen Lignage?) but the oddities have pretty much faded out now. Indeed, some, such as Skoda and Kia, have gone one step further: it’s 1, 2, 3. And, for really posh Kias, now 4. Lacking in buyer-frenzy emotion, perhaps, but little is more clear.

We now largely have across-the-board trim-and-spec clarity. What, though, when two manufacturers’ trims clash? That’s what happened this week and, if it confused me when doing the specs for the cars, it’s likely to confuse others too.

Honda has a Civic ES. Now then: the country’s second best selling maker, Vauxhall, dictates this should be a lower-end model: it offers ES grade as one above the price-buster lead-in.

However, Honda’s new Civic ES is actually the mid-range model – Honda’s Zetec, if you like. And to make it even more confusing, the base car is called SE. Yes, Honda’s reversing the premium brand logic and threatening the entire world order in the process.

Conventional wisdom means something concrete in the world of car trims. Yet here it is being thrown out the window in a fundamental reinterpretation of the car spec rule book. And, boy, will there be implications.

Take employees of the harassed fleet manager. They are going to get a bounty. Their man is going to be gleefully ordering ES-spec Civics, thinking they’re the best value, and actually treating his employees to features such as Bluetooth, dual-zone climate control, reversing camera, folding doormirrors, automatic headlights and wipers, leather steering wheel and front fogs. Result.

We jest. But the person who spends 100 x £1000 certainly won’t be, and this is why the collision of trims is so risky.

Honda’s ES doesn’t mean the same as Vauxhall’s ES, which may well confuse Astra and Civic buyers. Manufacturers usually go to great lengths to avoid these things, but not here. Chances are, someone is going to get caught out – with a six-figure overspend the very sobering risk that lies in wait.

So, anyone got any other examples of glaring trim clashes?

+ 6Music and the Lombard RAC Rally: Propaganda and Duel

+ June 2011: what is Infiniti doing at the moment?

+ June 2011: what is Suzuki doing at the moment?

BMW is committed to a future of turbocharged engines, both diesel and petrol, that will enable it to drop each cylinder set down a peg.

The V10 is dead, thank god, replaced by V8s. In time, V8s will become straight-sixes. Straight-sixes will become four-cylinders. Four-cylinders will become three-pots. We might not see BMW Boxer engines in cars just yet, but don’t rule it out longer-term (Fiat’s done two-cylinders with TwinAir, after all).

Turbochargers are the enabler to ensuring fewer cylinders can still produce sufficient torque, power and big car feel. BMW, pone of the turbo pioneers in the 1970s, has a wealth of expertise to call upon, including that of Paul Rosch, leader of the 1980s F1 turbo programme.

BMW thus has a clear strategy for vehicle turbocharging, that caters for both petrol and diesel engines: this determines both the choice of turbocharger and guides the lengthy calibration process once development begins.

There are two basic strategies in BMW’s choice of turbocharger unit – one for diesel, one for petrol. The 1 Series, boasting an all-turbo engine line-up, is a good car to demonstrate this.

Ignore confusing names for now: BMW muddles things with its TwinPower Turbo naming system. The assumption this means ‘twin turbos’ is incorrect, but it’s not entirely obvious what it does actually mean. Nor is the fact it means different things for different fuels.

So, here’s BMW’s turbo strategy for the new 1 Series, in a nutshell.

Diesel

Variable geometry turbo

Variable geometry turbos optimise the aspect ratio of the turbo according to engine revs. They allow strong boost at low engine speed but don’t choke the turbo of air at high speeds.

The secret is a series of adjustable vanes, which direct airflow onto the turbine housing. They’re adjustable according to engine revs and manipulate the passage of exhaust gas.

Small exhaust gas flow at lower engines speeds sees the vane almost close. This directs a sharp flow of air (which is accelerated due to the narrow passage) to the turbine wheel, maximising its force and helping minimise turbo ‘lag’.

At high engine speeds, the vanes fully open, directing gases directly onto the turbines. This ensures the gas is fully unrestricted, maximising efficiently.

Variable geometry turbos are common on diesels, and their benefits are felt most strongly at low engine revs. They’re rare on petrol engines due to the much higher exhaust gases, which creates a challenge for the mechanical reliability of the adjustable vane system. Only Porsche currently offers a variable geometry petrol turbo, in the 911 Turbo.

Petrol

Twin-scroll turbo

Here, cylinders whose firing pulses interfere with each other are separated. In a four-cylinder engine, two cylinders feed the turbo on one side of the inlet, and the other two feed the separated-off other side.

Twin-scroll turbos are fed by a manifold similarly divided: instead of being open, it’s also divided in two. Result: exhaust gases flow more smoothly through the system, which allows the cylinders to be filled more completely and also scavenged more completely.

As it’s so much more efficient, greater valve overlap can be used, too – the exhaust gases are ‘self cleansing’ so don’t need such tight control in and out: this keeps cylinder temperatures down, which further improves efficiency.

BMW started the theory with the twin-turbo six-cylinder engine, whose units were fed by a dual trio of cylinders. “The we learned it’s even better to combine Valvetronic and a single twin-scroll turbo,” said the BMW engineer I spoke to on the launch. “This further reduces losses – any efficiency at the turbo level is very significant: as it is the breathing system of the motor, efficiencies are multiplied through the whole engine…”

Clever stuff. And if you want to really understand why it’s so important to separate out cylinder pulses, put your hand over a (cold) exhaust pipe, and feel the ‘pops’ of gas.

Mix and match?

Makes sense. But why not use twin-scroll on diesels? Pointless, said my BMW man. Diesels work at lower load, with more air, so the spread between min and max airflow is not as big.

BMW has instead tailored the characteristics of both feels to the characteristics of turbos available by suppliers. It has hidden this optimisation beneath the veneer of confusing names, sadly, but the merits are clear upon investigation.

The internal combustion engines is moving towards a turbocharged future. BMW possesses a great deal of IP in the area and continues to demonstrate this on its new car introductions.

Question is, what next for BMW’s turbo strategy?

+ flickr: on launch

+ Saab classic: USB press kit joy

+ BMW 1 Series power meters

Land Rover this week launched the Defender version that will give the oldest Landie on sale yet another stay of execution.

The old 2.4-litre Ford Transit engine has been replaced by a 2.2-litre turbodiesel, related to that in the Freelander 2.

Producing 122hp and 265lb/ft of torque, it crucially also sports a diesel particulate filter, helping it achieve supertough Euro 5 emissions standards.

This is a legislative requirement for all new cars on sale. It came into force in January 2011 for passenger cars (and January of 2012 for light commercial vehicles such as the Defender) and has already done for family favourites such as the Honda Civic i-CTDi.

No, Honda wasn’t able to make that model Euro 5 emissions compliant, so it hasn’t been on sale since the start of the year. (A surprise for a company with its heart in engines such as Honda. Then again, that heart is in petrol engines, so perhaps it’s no surprise the diesel died.)

Now Land Rover has cracked it though, meaning the Defender can now stay on sale until 2016. That’s when the next wave of legislation kicks in, and around which high-level discussions are under way within Land Rover right now.

Green Defender

Here’s a fanciful thought for now, though: how about a stop-start Defender eD4 eco special?

Crazy? Well, why not..? There’s a stop start Freelander, after all, and the 2.2-litre engine has recently been revised once again for the Range Rover Evoque, where the stop-start version emits as little as 129g/km CO2.

Why not put this engine into the Defender? Indeed, why not go one further – optimise it for the road, alter the gearing, swap off-road tyres for low rolling resistance on-road ones, fit it solely to the 90 version… creating a sub-225g/km Defender – or, even, a sub-200g/km Defender?

The new 2.2-litre 90 version emits 266g/km, with its heavy off-road bias. It would be a big jump to 200g/km, but it’s not that fanciful when you realise how off-road optimised the Defender is.

There are probably a whole host of reasons why (including the fact Defenders are built for off-roading, and an on-road special may not fit with the brand values), but from a PR stance alone, it would be quite some statement for Land Rover to make.

Green Defender special, showing how eco even old icons can be? As a way of showing how truly modern and environmentally friendly Land Rover can be, it would be a flag-bearer and then some. There’s no shortage of engineering talent within Land Rover that could make it so if challenged to, either.

So, Land Rover MD John Edwards, how about it?

+ Renault Energy dCi 130: F1 on the road

+ June 2011: what is Land Rover doing at the moment?

+ SEAT applies the sun green

Motoring journalists road-test cars by living with them: doing all the things with them that they’d do with their own cars. 

It’s not as glamorous as blasting round the test track, but it’s the best way of finding out what a car’s actually like in the real world.

The track is great, and reveals useful stuff, but the shchlep to the supermarket reveals more about the car for the people who’ll be buying it.

Enter, then, my flickr set of road test images. Here, I’ll bring insights into what I’m actually doing with the cars I’ve got on test.

It won’t always be interesting. It will often incorporate Asda, or the tip, or a multi-storey car park in Birmingham. But it’s still representative of how I find out what I think about cars.

I’ll update it constantly too: as a guide, the images are arranged in date order, newest first. Lo, it’s the evolution of the test car diary in pictorial form…

Apologies if it gets repetitive at times. That’s another secret of road-testing: get yourself a favourite road, a favourite route, and drive all the cars you have on test across it for back to back comparisons.

You thus may be seeing the car park at the end of my route more than once in a while…

Twitter addicts need to tweet all the time. Facebook fans need to update their status, and Like the thoughts of others, constantly.

Social media is all-pervasive and smartphones make it possible to do anywhere, at any time.

Unless you’re driving.

We all know this doesn’t stop people, but the law, commonsense and (hopefully) a developed sense of risk aversion all make it hard to be as interconnected when driving. Which is a pain if, say, you’re a commuter, driving home from work in the peak must-not-miss activity times.

Enter the car makers. BMW’s the latest to take on the challenge of in-car Facebook and Twitter, with a neat solution that harnesses the power of ConnectedDrive.

It’s accessed via a nudge of the iDrive controller: find it in the BMW Apps submenu. There, you have a choice of functions accessed through a smartphone dropped into the centre console (plugging it into a dedicated holster allows BMW to hook it into the car’s wired-in roof aerial, improving reception).

Key to these for Brits will be Facebook and Twitter. Functionality is centred around status updates and having the news of others flashed up on the iDrive display. Yes, even the avatars are displaced in status streams. It’s extremely neat.

Safe Facebook

Broadcasting your own status is the big deal, though. But BMW doesn’t demand you type out status updates. Good job: you’d be there all day, or in a hedge. Instead, it has a list of pre-prepared messages. And I know what you’re thinking here: dear god, how impossibly cheesy.

But wait. Lots of them are dynamic messages. Within a standard text message lies a function that auto-inserts selected variables. A bit like an in-car PHP programmer.

There’s some cool stuff here, explained BMW iDrive expert Dieter Leimig on the 1 Series launch. Happen to be listening to some 1990s indie track that will have your mates in raptures? There’s a message that will insert the track title automatically, and fire it out: I am listening to <insert track title>.

Want to tell folk how far away you are from arrival? There’s a message that lets you enter the <arrival time> from the sat nav. There’s one that lets you tell people you <location>. There’s one that lets you update what the <outside temperature> is.

Tweet or Facebook these at your leisure: it’s smart stuff from BMW and, in time, will hook into far more feeds from the car’s systems.

BMW Apps to grow

Indeed, BMW Apps, said Leimig, is predicted to be a growth area over the next yew years. “We’re giving people the possibility to load up new apps for the car – and, next year, there’s going to be a developer’s kit released, that will let people create their own apps.

“It’s a good way for people with a car that’s a few years old to add new functions and interest to their car.”

Can you think of any variable-embedded status updates that would work well? Or, can imagine any more ambitious apps that you could create, given a BMW developer’s toolkit?

If so, share ‘em below. BMW’s given us the platform and will, in 2012, give us the development kit: why not come up with the ideas to capitalise on it?

+ BMW 1 Series power meters

+ Evernote inspires Ford

+ Social media strategy advice needed