The Internet + The Smart Grid = Connected, Sentient Automobiles that Drive Themselves. So in the Future Will There Still be Room on the Road for Muscle Cars?

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., Feb. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- "Reinventing Mobility," chapter three of the BMW Documentaries Film series Wherever You Want To Go, appears today online at www.bmwactivatethefuture.com.  In this installment, the series sets out to identify the complexities and tensions of the future of mobility as rooted in popular theories of today.  In particular, the film looks at the massive behavior changes needed to reinvent mobility into simpler and more efficient forms, and what we all may have to give up to achieve it.

As evidenced in the film, the future of mobility is clearly complex.  We are entering an exciting future that will feature an entirely new DNA for the automobile based on electricity and hydrogen from renewable sources.  The automobile of the future will be connected to every other car on the road, enabling communication between vehicles and everything else along the roadway.  As a result, the automobile of the future will be nearly sentient and may literally drive and park itself.  But is the automobile of the future worth the price of losing the romance and excitement that comes from the rumbling and powerful cars we love and cherish?  In the future, will there be room for both?

"Reinventing Mobility" features Astronaut Buzz Aldrin; Futurist and conceptual designer for Blade Runner, Aliens and Tron, Syd Mead; Google VP Marissa Mayer; ZipCar founder Robin Chase; Treehugger.com founder Graham Hill; Ridelust.com editor-in-chief Mike Musto; Reinventing the Automobile co-author Lawrence Burns; BMW Designworks USA President Laurenz Shaffer; MIT Sloan Director of Automotive Professor Wai Chang; and Human Business Works President & CEO Chris Brogan and others.

Director: Kurt Mattila.  Production company: Prologue Pictures.  Run time: 6 min 58 sec.

About BMW Documentary Films "Wherever You Want To Go"

BMW Documentary Films "Wherever You Want To Go" is a collection of four films, broken into chapters, which focuses on the future of mobility, cities and technology.  The series is inspired by the launch of the BMW ActiveE, an electric vehicle.  Each film features interviews with a diverse range of thought leaders to create a holistic look into the opportunities and challenges of our future world.

Developed in collaboration with kirshenbaum bond senecal + partners, the films precipitate a unique collective engineering project, dubbed "Activate The Future" designed to build a community of people who are passionate about working together to create the future, rather than waiting for it to happen to them.

Additional chapters will appear each Tuesday throughout the month of February.  To allow viewers to better engage with the films and to add to the ongoing dialogue, BMW designed an innovative new video player specifically for the films.  Viewers can access additional content around a theme, quote, or speaker in real time, while giving them the option to pause the main viewer.  Additionally, they can also post their own thoughts or comments directly to specific moments of the film for others to see and react.

About ActiveE

The BMW ActiveE will be an electric vehicle based on a BMW 1 Series Coupe that will use electric motor and battery cell technology developed in-house.  It will represent the second phase of a three-phase electric vehicle development plan that will lead to a dedicated electric vehicle that will launch in 2013.  The BMW ActiveE will be available for lease beginning this fall.

BMW Group In America

BMW of North America, LLC has been present in the United States since 1975.  Rolls-Royce Motor Cars NA, LLC began distributing vehicles in 2003.  The BMW Group in the United States has grown to include marketing, sales, and financial service organizations for the BMW brand of motor vehicles, including motorcycles, the MINI brand, and the Rolls-Royce brand of Motor Cars; Designworks USA, a strategic design consultancy in California; a technology office in Silicon Valley and various other operations throughout the country.  BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC in South Carolina is part of BMW Group's global manufacturing network and is the exclusive manufacturing plant for all X5 and X3 Sports Activity Vehicles and X6 Sports Activity Coupes.  The BMW Group sales organization is represented in the U.S. through networks of 338 BMW passenger car and BMW Sports Activity Vehicle centers, 138 BMW motorcycle retailers, 103 MINI passenger car dealers, and 30 Rolls-Royce Motor Car dealers.  BMW (US) Holding Corp., the BMW Group's sales headquarters for North America, is located in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

Information about BMW Group products is available to consumers via the Internet at:  www.bmwgroupna.com.

Journalist note: Information about BMW Group and its products in the USA is available to journalists on-line at www.bmwgroupusanews.com and www.press.bmwna.com.

SOURCE BMW of North America, LLC