Why Are There Still No Flying Cars? BMW Documentaries Investigates the Future of Mobility by Looking at the Past

WOODCLIFF LAKE, N.J., Feb. 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- "The Future Just Isn't What It Used To Be," chapter two of the BMW Documentaries Film series Wherever You Want To Go, premieres today online at bmwactivatethefuture.com. The film takes a critical look at some of the industry's earliest predictions for the evolution of planes and automobiles to understand why aviation has progressed much further than automobiles even though both are roughly the same age.  The short documentary evaluates which predictions we got right, which can be improved, which should be changed and why we are unlikely to ever travel in a flying car despite our many attempts to build one.    

"The Future Just Isn't What it Used To Be" features many of the same thought leaders found in chapter one, "The New City", including 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; and Reinventing the Automobile co-author Lawrence Burns.  They are joined in chapter two by BMW DesignWorks USA President Laurenz Shaffer; Virgin Galactic President & CEO George Whitesides; MIT Sloan Director of Automotive Professor Wai Chang; and Human Business Works President & CEO Chris Brogan.

Director: Kurt Mattila.  Production company: Prologue Pictures.  Run time: 6 min 42 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; DesignworksUSA, 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

SOURCE BMW of North America, LLC