This just in. On August 11, 2009, BMW of North America and the University of California at Davis announced their partnership on a year-long field study to determine the viability of electric vehicles. MINI E customers, in Los Angeles, and few in the New York City-area, will participate in the study. The research will focus on user interactions with the MINI E, in order to yield insight into real-life usage and perceptions about electric vehicles. Information will be gathered from 50 voluntary participants, a subset of the 450 MINI E customers in the U.S., through online travel diaries, written questionnaires and a series of interviews conducted throughout the one-year study. Our friend, Jim McDowell, Vice President of MINI USA says: “The findings will accelerate the understanding of real-world electric driving and both shape future product development within the BMW Group and benefit the mainstream U.S. automotive market when this technology trickles down.”
The UC Davis Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle (PHEV) Research Center, administered by the Institute of Transportation Studies and funded by a three-year, $3-million grant from the California Energy Commission’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) Program, will conduct the research.
