• BMW 7 Series Autoshow










    BMW seems to be on a mission lately to offer something for everyone, no matter how nonsensical a certain consumer’s particular set of needs and wants may be. Case in point: the brilliant X6 and its mutant half-sister, the 5-series Gran Turismo. The latest in Bavaria’s barrage of the bizarre, the ActiveHybrid 7—a full-size “luxury performance” hybrid—seems to actually make sense relative to those two. It doesn’t hurt the argument for its existence that a competitor from Lexus—the LS600hL—has been on the road for two years now.



    What makes the ActiveHybrid 7 strange is BMW’s boast that it is the quickest hybrid sedan on the market. If speed is the objective, we’re not sure why a hybrid is the answer. Likewise, if fuel economy is the end goal, tuning the twin-turbo V-8 gas engine for an additional 40 hp and 30 lb-ft of torque seems silly. However, if a 7-series customer believes he needs a car more powerful than the 750i but doesn’t want to step up to the 12-cylinder 760Li—which we think he should—and also wants 15 percent or so better fuel economy, BMW has just the model.

    BMW’s engineers claim they set out to increase fuel economy, and the performance gains are a secondary benefit they hadn’t intended, but that sounds like PR script to us. No dimbulbs, they probably had a hunch that adding a bunch of extra power and torque would make the car quicker. The official claim is a half-second quicker to 60 mph over the nonhybrid 750i, or 4.7 seconds—which would beat our tested time for the LS600hL by 0.7 second. A brief blast up the autobahn during our test drive confirms that the hybrid 7 rockets to its 150-mph governor without any of the lethargy commonly associated with hybrids. Later on, driving more like downtrodden suburban Americans, we saw an indicated 20 mpg.

    So, It’s Fast. How Hybrid-y Is It?

    Okay, so you really care about the hybrid bits? It’s a mild hybrid, meaning no gliding about on electric power and smugness alone. You want motion, you’re going to have to choke the planet with the internal-combustion engine. There’s an electric motor sandwiched between the gas engine and the torque converter in the eight-speed automatic transmission. It contributes an additional 20 hp and 155 lb-ft—for a combined output of 455 hp and 515 lb-ft—and allows the engine to sit quiet at stops, as it powers the accessories. Although it isn’t a completely seamless stop and start, the transition doesn’t call attention to itself.



    Our larger complaint is that, although the engine fires up as soon as you lift your foot from the brake, if you snooze at a light or are inching through a left-turn lane waiting for a break in traffic, a quick leap from brake to gas beats the reignition process and results in a herky jerk forward. However, if you plan on a quick dive for the gas, you can disable the stop/start feature by putting the shifter into sport mode.
    Saturday, January 9, 2010 laksh arora
     

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