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Showing posts from January, 2015

BMW i3 Super Bowl Commercial "Newfangled Idea" Released

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Even though the Super Bowl is still about a week away, today BMW released the 60 second i3 commercial which will air during the big game. The commercial begins with a flashback to a live filming of NBC's Today Show in 1994 with Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel Talking about the internet. They have absolutely no idea what it is or how one might use it. They even can't agree on what the "@" symbol on a keyboard means. It's really hard to imagine this, since in the 21 years that have passed since this was filmed, the internet has integrated its way into all of our lives so much it is difficult to image life without it. That's the whole point of the commercial. Things that seem foreign to us today may be the norm very soon in today's rapidly evolving world of technology. After the flashback, Katie and Bryant are sitting in an i3, and their conversation sounds very much like the one they had 21 years ago, struggling to understand what the i3 is and even how it wa

BMW Partners With Volkswagen & ChargePoint. Announces Beginning of Large Scale CCS Fast Charge Rollout in US

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Today at the DC Auto Show, BMW announced they have partnered with Volkswagen and ChargePoint to begin what will be the largest roll out of CCS Fast Charge stations in the US. This first phase will consist of the installation of roughly 100 CCS Fast Charge stations, split between the East and West Coasts.  On the East coast, there will be locations approximately every 50 miles between Washington DC and Boston, and on the West coast the new "CCS Highway" will span from San Diego, CA all the way to Portland OR. All of these locations will feature 50kW dual-head Fast Charge stations, including CHAdeMO charging capabilities as well as CCS. In addition, these locations will have multiple Level 2 ChargePoint EVSE's, allowing the user to "top off" once the vehicle reaches 80% state of charge from the DC fast charger.  In addition to the "CCS Highway" locations, BMW is also going to install a network of their 24kW DC Fast Chargers at secondary locations which a