Over 200 million tonnes: BMW Group sets ambitious goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030 – Automotive World

The BMW Group is underpinning its mission for sustainable mobility with ambitious goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases

The BMW Group is underpinning its mission for sustainable mobility with ambitious goals for the reduction of greenhouse gases: At todays Annual General Meeting, the company announced that it will avoid emission of over200 million tonnes of CO2by 2030. This is equivalent to more than20 timesthe annual CO2 emissions of a city with over a million inhabitants, like Munich. To achieve this, the BMW Group is reducing its vehicles carbon footprintthroughout their lifecycle from raw material extraction, through production and the use phase, to end-of-life recycling. Going forward, using fewer resources will be one of the priorities.

A climate-friendly car is not created solely by using green power. We must design our vehicles for sustainability from the very first day of development: reducing the amount of material used to manufacture them and, above all, planning for reuse and recycling from the very beginning. In the face of rising raw material prices, this is not just an environmental, but also a business imperative, saidOliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, at the Annual General Meeting in Munich on Wednesday. The technology for this is extremely demanding: That is why we want to lead the way on the circular economy and play a pioneering role. We are already working on quotas for the use of secondary material in our Neue Klasse that are both concrete and ambitious to meet our high standards.

The BMW Group will highlight thefuture potentialof thecircular economyfor environmental and climate protection at theIAA MOBILITY 2021in September. The companys RE:THINK, RE:DUCE, RE:USE, RE:CYCLE approach provides a holistic view of how the use of primary raw materials can be drastically reduced in the cars of the future.

The BMW Group already plans to take sustainability to a radically new level in its Neue Klassemodels from the middle of the decade bysignificantly reducingitsresource consumptionper vehicle. The aim is to substantially increase thepercentage of secondary material, such as recycled steel, plastics and aluminium. Faced with ashortage of natural resourcesand rising raw material prices, the BMW Group sees this step as a crucial lever forsustainable business practicesand creatinga clear efficiency imperative.

To achieve this, the BMW Group has initiated aparadigm shiftin development with its secondary first approach, i.e. using secondary material wherever the quality and availability of materials allow.

Thehigh-voltage batteryplays a unique role in this: The process of manufacturing the battery and producing battery cells is extremelyenergy-intensiveand therefore an important factor in the carbon footprint of any electric car. With thenext generation of battery technologyto be introduced in the Neue Klasse, the BMW Group aims to reduce the carbon footprint of the high-voltage battery toless than halfthe baseline value for the current Gen5 technology.

In addition to the shift togreen poweralready implemented by cell manufacturers, thenew battery and cell concept,combined withenhanced cell chemistry, will also make a significant contribution. Another factor is the growing percentage ofsecondary materialin the battery cells and high-voltage battery as a whole. The housing in theBMWiX*already contains up to 30 percentsecondary aluminiumand up to 50 percent secondarynickel, which is a key raw material, is used in the battery cell. At the same time, the BMW Group has limited its use of critical raw materials in the current generation of battery cells and reduced the amount ofcobaltin the cathode material toless than ten percent. The electric motorno longer requires the use of rare earths.

Recycling needs are already considered in the vehicledesign because extracting materials in a very pure form is a central challenge for currentrecycling processes. For example, the electrical system must be easy to remove, prior to recycling, to avoid mixing the steel with copper from the vehicles wiring harness. Otherwise, the secondary steel no longer meets the automotive industrysstrict safety requirements. Theuse of mono-materials for instance, in seats must be significantly increased to enable the maximum amount possible to be fed back into the material cycle.

Another key aspect isefficient dismantling capability. Forsecondary materialsto be able tocompetein the marketplace, the vehicle and individual components must be dismantled quickly and cost-effectively as a preliminary to recycling. The prerequisites for this must be put in place whendesigning the vehicle for example, by not securing connections with adhesive, but designing them so they can be detached again at the end of the vehicle life and ensuring different materials are not mixed with one another.

The BMW Group made sustainability and resource efficiency the focus of its strategic direction in 2020 and, with this realignment, is pursuing amuch more ambitious coursethan the goal of limiting the increase in global temperature to two degrees. Throughout the vehicle lifecycle and all three scopes considered, the BMW Group has setmeasurable and verifiable goalsthat have since beenvalidatedby theScience-Based Targets Initiative:

Each of these goals represents a substantive reduction in emissions in other words, a real decrease in CO2 emissions per vehicle. A key factor is that BMW Group production and all locations have been sourcing 100-percent green power since the end of 2020. Starting this year, the BMW Group isalso offsettingits remaining CO2 emissions (Scope 1+2) through selectedoffsetting measures, which also cover emissions from company cars and business trips, for example. This means that, from 2021 on, the BMW Groups entire production, including all its locations worldwide, will becompletelynet carbon neutral.

For the BMW Group, one thing is certain: Such measures are an important factor inoffsettingthe net impactof climate-damaging emissions however, they must not delay substantive measures that can deliver a real reduction in emissions. For this reason, the BMW Grouponlyapplies these measures for itsremainingcarbon emissions thatare still unavoidable for example, from the use of highly efficient co-generation plants.

As far as the BMW Group is concerned: Avoiding comes before offsetting. In this way, we have already lowered our energy consumption per vehicle produced by more than a third from 2006 levels and were even able to reduce the corresponding CO2 emissions per vehicle produced by over 70 percent, saidZipse.

The BMW Group is thefirst automotive manufacturerto set itself concrete targets for reducing CO2 emissions in itssupply chainby 2030. In addition to the use of green power for the energy-intensive production of fifth-generation battery cells, further measures have been initiated for example,solar powerwill be used in the future for production ofaluminium, which is also highly energy-intensive. The BMW Group is also investing in an innovative method forcarbon-free steel production,developed byUS startup Boston Metal,through its venture capital fund, BMW i Ventures.

A key driver for the decarbonisation of individual mobility and the most important factor in reducing CO2 emissions during the use phase will be the massive ramp-up of electromobility which the BMW Group has stepped up even more in recent years. The company will offer five fully-electric models by the end of this year: the BMWi3*, the MINISE* and the BMWiX3*, as well as the two main innovation flagships, the BMWiX* and the BMWi4*. These will be followed in the coming years by fully-electric versions of the high-volume BMW 5 Series and the BMW X1. They will also be joined by the BMW7Series, the successor to the MINI Countryman and other models. By 2023, the BMW Group will haveat least one fully-electric modelon the roads in about 90 percent of its current market segments.

Between now and2025, the BMW Group willincreaseits sales of fully-electric models by an average ofwell over 50 percentper year more than ten timesthe number of units sold in 2020. Based on its current market forecast, the company also expectsat least 50 percent of its global sales to come from fully-electric vehicles in 2030. The actual figure may vary significantly from market to market and will ultimately depend to a large extent on how much progress is made in expanding charging infrastructure at regional level.

At this point, there will no longer be any segment position in the BMW Groupsentire product portfoliowhere the company does not offer at least one fully-electric model. Individual segments may, in fact, be served exclusively by fully-electric models. The company will also be capable of handling a much larger percentage of fully-electric vehicles if demand develops accordingly. In total, over the next ten years or so, the BMW Group will release aboutten million fully-electric vehiclesonto the roads.

BMW Motorradis also expanding its range of electric vehicles on two wheels for urban spaces: At #NEXTGen 2020, the company shared a concrete vision of what a production vehicle that could soon take one-track electromobility in cities to a whole new level, both technically and optically, might look like, with the BMW Motorrad Definition CE 04. The BMW Group will be presenting the corresponding production model this summer.

*Consumption/emissions data:

BMW iX:Power consumption in kWh/100km: 22.5-19.5 WLTP. Data are preliminary and based on forecasts.BMW i3(120 Ah):Power consumption in kWh/100km combined: 13.1NEDC, 16.3-15.3 WLTP.BMW i3s(120 Ah):Power consumption in kWh/100km combined: 14.6-14.0NEDC, 16.6-16.3 WLTP.MINI Cooper SE:Power consumption in kWh/100km combined: 16.9-14.9 NEDC, 17.6-15.2 WLTP.BMW iX3:Power consumption in kWh/100km combined: 17.8-17.5 NEDC, 19.0-18.6 WLTP.BMW i4:This is a pre-production model, no homologation figures are available yet.

SOURCE: BMW Group

Continue reading here:

Over 200 million tonnes: BMW Group sets ambitious goal to reduce CO2 emissions by 2030 - Automotive World