Reporting from Frankfurt, Germany - If you think all hybrid cars are like the Toyota Prius -- mirthless, ugly hair shirts of green conscience -- BMW would like you to meet its Vision: A stealth submarine of a car, lower than a boxing foul, all folded geometry and LED tracer lights. The signature BMW grille glows blue like a reactor cooling pond. The transparent doors open like dragonfly wings.
The all-wheel-drive Vision sport coupe is the Usain Bolt of hybrid cars: 0-60 mph in under 4.8 seconds, top speed of 155 mph, 356 horsepower, and handling and braking comparable to the company's brain-melting M3 coupe.
Fuel economy: 75 miles per gallon. And you can plug it in.
Santa Monica might never be the same.
The Vision is one of several so-called electro-diesels at the Frankfurt auto show that put a typically European spin on Japan's signature eco-tech of hybrids. By combining electric motors and batteries with the huge torque and efficiency of direct-injection turbodiesels, the European automakers are breeding a species of car that delivers V-8 performance with the fuel economy of mopeds.
Behind the menacing grille of the Vision, there's a small 1.5-liter, 163-horsepower three-cylinder turbodiesel engine and a big electric traction motor; arrayed like a capital "I" running down the spine of the car are rows of lithium-polymer batteries. At the rear axle is another electric motor, which gives the car essentially all-wheel drive. Together these components produce a whopping 590 pound-feet of torque, considerably more than your average Lamborghini.
The Vision, which uses batteries developed for Apache attack helicopters, is but a concept for now. But "all the components are very realistic," said Philip Koehn, BMW's director of concept vehicle development. The batteries, the diesel components and electric motors are "off the shelf," he said.
Too flashy for you? At the other end of the performance spectrum is Volkswagen's L1 concept, a hyper-light, tandem-seat oil-burner, like a bobsled for the road. Getting its world premiere in Frankfurt, the L1 is powered by a small, two-cylinder turbocharged direct-injection (TDI) diesel engine and a small electric motor.
The L1's marquee number: 170 mpg, or about four times that of a Honda Insight hybrid. If it comes to market as planned in 2013, the VW L1 could claim the title of most fuel efficient passenger car on the road.
It would also be one of the cleanest. On a carbon-gram-per-mile basis -- that's the emissions metric that Europeans are most concerned with -- electro-diesels can outperform the thriftiest gas hybrids on the planet.
In the case of the Vision, BMW says the car produces 99 grams of carbon per kilometer on its own; plug it in and that number drops to 50 g/km.
To compare, a Toyota Prius has carbon emissions of 89 g/km in the European emission test cycle.
Depending on what you call a hybrid, electro-diesels have already arrived. Audi sells two diesel cars that are equipped with small starter/generators and battery packs to give them stop/start capability (the engine shuts down when the car is put in neutral).
However, Americans think of hybrids as cars with powerful electric motors than can move at low speed on battery power alone. The first such diesel car to come to market will be the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4. Arriving in spring 2011, this mid-size sport-utility vehicle is expected to get about 62 mpg and produce 99 g/km of carbon.
A HYbrid4 version of the company's RCZ sports coupe is all but certain.
For years European automakers, who are the acknowledged masters of turbodiesel technology, have quietly stewed as Asian companies reaped the green-image benefits of hybrid technology.
On a cost and emissions basis, German automakers argued, turbodiesel engines are more efficient. One reason is that diesel fuel itself has a higher energy content than gasoline.
Still, hybrids offer some advantages. They recover kinetic energy as they brake or coast and use it to charge the batteries. They also save fuel by shutting down the internal-combustion engine when the vehicle comes to a stop. And they can move on electric power alone at low speeds, where internal combustion engines are less efficient.
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