BMW 750li 2008 News

Their car will do it for them, keeping an electronic eye on the road and giving a constant update on the legal limit.The job is done by a new computerised control system — linking a forward-facing camera to sophisticated software that recognises traditional and electronic speed signs — that flashes the current limit to the dashboard and heads-up display.It is fitted first to the new 7 but is expected to move quickly to other models in the BMW family.Unlike satnav-based systems, the BMW design is not pre-programmed and can react to variable-limit signs and time-sensitive limits such as those in school zones. BMW has no plans to link it to a speed limiter. 

The explosive growth of the BMW model range is about to be defused in Australia, with the line-up being trimmed to cut competition and duplication, making it easier for customers in showrooms.The plan is to have only three choices of any individual model, with two petrol engines and one diesel.The current list includes 36 individual models in the 3 Series sedan line-up ... without counting the coupe, convertible or station wagon.“We get a lot of questions about whetherwe have too many models,” BMW Australia managing director Guenther Seemann says.“I think we do have too many.”He believes BMW must cut the choices to streamline business, though he says there will still be all-new models in future — with the X6 four-wheel-drive and M3 sedan up next — asthe German company looks for customers.The work has begun, though there are a dozen individual BMW lines, from the baby 1 Series to the four-wheel-drive X5 and flagship 7 Series, with 50 official engine choices. BMW has 189 individual models on the list.“We've already begun tidying up. The 116i hatch has been removed from the range, there are the manuals in the 3 Series and one of the X3 manuals,” Seemann says.“In the 5 Series range, one of the V8s will go.I believe for each and every model line-up in the future, as we add models, we need two petrol and one diesel variant in each case. No more. We have so many different model lines, it is not practical or possible to display them all in a showroom.”He says it will take time to get things sorted, partly because there are so many models.“It will happen in the next two years. Globally, there are five petrol and five diesel engine choices. And that is just in the 3 Series range,” Seemann says. But there is definitely space for some additions, like the four-door M3 sedan.“We will bring the four-door version, but I do not know at what price. We have to price it lower than the M3 two-door.” 

The explosive growth of the BMW model range is about to be defused in Australia. The line-up is being trimmed to cut competition and duplication, making it easier for customers in showrooms.The plan is to have only three choices of any individual model, with two petrol engines and one diesel. The current list includes 36 individual models in the 3 Series sedan line-up . . . without counting the coupe, convertible or station wagon.“We get a lot of questions about whether we have too many models. I think we do have too many,” BMW Australia managing director Guenther Seemann says.He believes BMW must cut the choices to streamline business, though he says there will still be all-new models in future — with the X6 four-wheel drive and M3 sedan up next — as the German company looks for customers.The work has begun, though there are a dozen individual BMW lines, from the baby 1 Series to the four-wheel-drive X5 and flagship 7-Series, with 50 official engine choices. BMW has 189 individual models on the list.“We've already begun tidying up. The 116i hatch has been removed from the range, there are the manuals in the 3 Series and one of the X3 manuals,” Seeman says.“In the 5 Series range, one of the V8s will go. I believe for each and every model line-up in the future, as we add models, we need two petrol and one diesel variant in each case. No more. We have so many different model lines, it is not practical or possible to display them all in a showroom.He says it will take time to get things sorted, partly because there are so many models.“It will happen in the next two years. Globally, there are five petrol and five diesel engine choices. And that is just in the 3 Series range,” he says.But there is definitely space for some additions, like the four-door M3 sedan.“We are starting the business case. It looks good, I must say,” he says.“We will bring the four-door version, but I do not know at what price. We always follow the normal BMW pattern, where a two-door is more expensive than a four-door. We have to price it lower than the M3 two-door.” 

Governments around the world should be doing far more to encourage alternative-powered vehicles, says a BMW expert in hydrogen technology.BMW's director of clean energy, Jochen Schmalholz, believes more help is needed to push research and development and to increase the showroom appeal of alternative-powered vehicles.The top-level BMW engineer has just been spruiking BMW's hydrogen message in Melbourne, where the company displayed four hydrogen-powered 7 Series sedans. BMW has built 100 hydrogen-powered 7 Series for research and global promotion, and to push hydrogen as a viable fuel alternative.Schmalholz says tax breaks or other incentives are not new.“It has been done before around the world when we changed from regular petrol to lead-free petrol,” he says.But he says many governments are not aware of future technologies and some are concentrating only on short-term goals.“Basically, they are short-term focused to the next election,” Schmalholz says.“They don't really think about the future."“Even for BMW, we started 30 years ago on this project, knowing it's another 20 to 30 years before we see these cars. But we were convinced that if we didn't we would be out of business.”Schmalholz is encouraged after a meeting with the Federal Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong, that emission trading and future transport issues are high on the Australian government's agenda.BMW has spent millions developing the hydrogen-fuelled cars even though the first mass-produced cars are not expected to be on roads until about 2040.It has received no monetary assistance from the German government to help its research.Each 7 Series uses a direct-injection dual-mode 6.0-litre V12 engine, which develops 191kW/390Nm and can run on either petrol or hydrogen.Using only hydrogen, the car has a touring range of 240km and emits two glasses of water every 100km from its 8kg tank of liquid hydrogen.BMW aims to have a mass-produced hydrogen car the size of a 3 and 5 Series that can travel 500km between refills.But hydrogen remains an expensive long-term proposition because of storage and infrastructure requirements. About 80 per cent of the world's hydrogen supply comes from natural gas or oil, Schmalholz says.This means CO2 emissions are produced, offset by the fact that CO2 emissions are reduced through the use of hydrogen as a power source for vehicles.The stainless-steel tank containing the hydrogen also needs to be super insulated to keep the contents at -250C.The benefits of hydrogen are obvious, with only water vapour and air coming out of the exhaust pipe cleaner than the air we breathe.It also uses the existing internal combustion engine.Honda, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz are also researching applications of hydrogen as fuel.Governments are short-term focused to the next election. They don't think about the future, BMW's director clean energy, Jochen Schmalholz says. 

The complex iDrive system in BMW cars may be getting a revamp by Apple.Since it was launched, the iDrive which houses the cluster of navigation, vehicle information, entertainment and communication controls has been widely condemned as being too complicated and hard to use.Rumours doing the rounds are hinting that BMW is chatting to Apple about a redesign, which might be seen first in the next 7-Series. This follows BMW's announcement this year that it would be the first carmaker to have compatibility with Apple's revolutionary iPhone, which uses nanotechnology for a `touch and pinch' screen interface.However the current iDrive system uses Microsoft software for the telematics, so any changeover to an Apple user interface would likely mean a significant re-engineering program.There has been some suggestion that BMW may simply add the `click-wheel' interface seen on later Apple iPods. But while it's the iPod that has made the click wheel ubiquitous, the interface is used by other companies and is not copyrighted by Apple.In fact, Apple itself faced a copyright lawsuit over the click wheel, with British touch sensor chip company Quantum Research Group filing a claim of patent infringement of the company's capacitive sensing technology it claims is used in the wheel.However BMW Australia spokesman Toni Andreevski says he has not seen any official information about the iDrive being redesigned.“I haven't seen anything through BMW on the Apple stuff,” Andreevski says.“I've seen some rumours, but I don't know how genuine they are. But iDrive will continue to be evolved, as we've seen with the recent launch of the very useful `favourite' buttons, and at this stage our customers are happy with the current set-up so there are no plans for major changes.”

Michael Schumacher retired with seven world championships, but 007 is up to 21 movies — with six different macho men in the role — and still going hard.During the past quarter-century and in 21 official films, Bond has been the target of more bad guys on wheels than anyone else in cinema history, yet he has always managed to escape without a scratch.And he has often pulled a nifty U-turn on the opposition with some sort of car trickery, from concealed machine guns on a 1960s Aston Martin to an '80s Lotus Esprit that morphed into a submarine — and even a remote-controlled BMW 7 Series in the '90s.Now he's back for the noughties, and doing it again in the remake of Casino Royale, which opened in cinemas just before Christmas. And he's back in an Aston Martin, just like the early days.The hype for the new 007 movie got me thinking not only about Bond's wheelwork in the latest British supercar, but also the dream car of my childhood: a scale model of the Aston Martin DB5 Bond drove in the 1960s.It came with all the Bond gear — revolving number plates, concealed machine guns, tyre-slashers, a bulletproof rear shield and even an ejector seat.In 1965, Corgi released its scale model of the gadget-laden DB5, and by 1968 nearly four million copies had been sold.It remains Corgi's best-known model, and I couldn't afford it.The release of the 21st-century Casino Royale has triggered a lot of talk about 007 and cars and movies.The model-making machine is already rolling again, with scaled-down copies of the DBS and even re-done — but de-gadgeted — replicas of the original DB5. And this time, there was a tiny Aston in my Christmas stocking.It's worth looking at what Bond cameos have done for car companies.BMW experienced plenty of benefit when it signed a multi-movie deal that began with its baby Z3 convertible. The world saw the car first when it was driven on the big screen by Bond. That deal continued with the Z8 convertible and the controversially styled 7, and even a BMW motorcycle.But then Britain bounced back for the last of Pierce Brosnan's appearances as Bond, when he slid back into an Aston and the baddies strapped into a rocket-equipped Jaguar.This time around, Agent 007 is driving a gorgeous new DBS, and there's even a special appearance by an original DB5.A poll has been conducted for the television series Top Gear on the most popular car chase in Bond movie history. And the winner is ... no, not the Aston. Not a Jaguar, nor the Lotus, nor even one of the BMWs.First choice was a crazy little Citroen 2CV that suffered all sorts of punishment — including being cut in half — when it was driven by Roger Moore in the 1981 film For Your Eyes Only. The four-wheeled co-stars:Dr No (1962): Sunbeam Alpine, Chevrolet Bel AirconvertibleFrom Russia With Love (1963): Bentley Mark IVGoldfinger (1964): Aston Martin DB5, Rolls-Royce, Mercedes 190SL, Lincoln Continental, Ford Mustang convertible, Rolls-Royce Phantom IIIThunderball (1965): Aston Martin DB5, Ford Mustang convertible, BSA Lightning motorcycle, gyrocopter1967 You Only Live Twice: Toyota 2000 GT, BMW CSOn Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969): Aston Martin DBS, Mercury Cougar, Bentley S2 Continental, Rolls-Royce CornicheDiamonds Are Forever (1971): Ford Mustang Mach 1, Triumph Stag, moon buggyLive And Let Die (1973): double-decker London bus, Chevrolet Impala convertible, MiniMokeThe Man With The Golden Gun (1974): AMC Hornet and Matador, Rolls-Royce Silver ShadowThe Spy Who Loved Me (1977): Lotus Esprit, Wetbike concept, Ford Cortina Ghia, Mini MokeMoonraker (1979): Bentley Mark IV, Rolls-Royce SilverWraithFor Your Eyes Only (1981): Citroen 2CV, Lotus Esprit Turbo, Rolls-Royce Silver WraithOctopussy (1983): Mercedes-Benz 250 SE, BMW 5 Series, Alfa Romeo GTVA View To A Kill (1985): Renault taxi, Ford LTD, Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II, Chevrolet Corvette C4The Living Daylights (1987): Aston Martin DBS and V8 Vantage, Audi 200 QuattroLicence To Kill (1989): Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow, Kenworth petrol tankerGoldenEye (1995): BMW Z3, Aston Martin DB5, Russian tank, Ferrari 355Tomorrow Never Dies (1997): Aston Martin DB5, BMW 750iL, BMW R1200C motorcycleThe World Is Not Enough (1999): BMW Z8, Rolls-Royce Silver ShadowDie Another Day (2002): Aston Martin Vanquish, Jaguar XKR, Ford Thunderbird convertibleCasino Royale (2006): Aston Martin DBS and DB5, Jaguar E-type roadster, Fiat Panda 4x4, Ford Transit, Ford Mondeo