This is really cool! Electrically-driven Minis in Berlin!

BMW, Vattenfall field test e-mobiles in Berlin
By Christoph Hammerschmidt

Automotive Design Europe
(11/25/2008 11:56 AM EST)
MUNICH, Germany — BMW group and electricity supplier Vattenfall Europe will launch a field trial with electrical vehicles in Berlin. The project will start in spring 2009.

Vattenfall will install publicly accessible "energy dispensers". BMW will provide the vehicles for the test — 50 electrically-driven Minis. The vehicles are part of a fleet of electrical cars currently deployed in similar tests worldwide. The car vendor hopes to gather cognitions in the field of electromobility. The trial focuses on suitability for daily use and user acceptance. The insights gathered will be used for future e-car volume production, the company said.

The cars will be equipped with a 150-kw electric motor which gives the vehicles a maximum speed of 152 km/h. The driving range of the lithium-ion battery equipped vehicles will be 250 km — significantly more than electrical cars used to have up to now.

The project will be accompanied by scientists from the Technical Universities of Berlin, Chemnitz, and Ilmenau. Besides user behavior and acceptance, technical aspect are in the focus of the scientists. For instance, they plan to find out how charging electric vehicles can be used as a compensating element in the oscillations of wind-generated electric energy. Based on the results, Vattenfall plans to develop a system that uses "controlled charging" to equalize the energy production spikes caused by the wind energy variations.

With 50 vehicles participating, the project is much smaller than a similar one announced recently by the Nissan-Renault and the Portuguese government in Portugal. In contrast to the latter, the Berlin project will start as early as coming spring.