大千世界: 探秘宝马的未来实验室

You know BMW as a luxury automaker. But at a blocky, white facility off of Interstate 280 in Mountain View, Calif., the company is busily working on projects it hopes will keep its cars at the cutting edge of green technology. From parking lot charging stations to a shed full of lithium-ion batteries, BMW has its very own future lab, where it's plotting a future for sustainable luxury cars.

众所周知，宝马公司（BMW）是豪华轿车制造商。但在加州山景城280号州际公路边的一栋白色小房子里，宝马公司的员工正在热火朝天地工作，希望自己生产的汽车能够跑在绿色科技的前沿。从停车场的充电站到装满锂离子电池的棚子，宝马已经拥有自己的未来实验室，而且正在那里此谱写可持续豪华轿车的未来。

The lab master

实验室的领导

Meet Peter Dempster, an advanced technology engineer at BMW in Mountain View. He's part of a team that's cooking up new ideas for BMW's next-gen cars. Dempster worked on the MINI E, an electric car that rolled out in 2008 and was a big hit among the company's more than 600 test-drivers. He's now using data from the MINI E project to help BMW meet the needs of a growing group of luxury consumers concerned with sustainability.

在山景城的宝马公司，你可以见到高级技术工程师彼得•登普斯特。他就是宝马下一代汽车创意孵化组的成员之一。登普斯特曾经参与开发MINI E。这辆电动汽车于2008年面世，在公司的600多名测试驾驶员中引起了轰动。如今，他将MINI E项目的数据用于帮助宝马，以满足日益增长的关注可持续性的奢侈品买家的需求。

Solar tree

太阳树

At BMW's Mountain View campus, the company is experimenting with using alternative energy to fuel cars. This solar tree, Dempster says, produces enough electricity (in kilowatt-hours) to power one of BMW's electric vehicles. At the campus, the electricity from the panel helps power appliances in the building. In fact, the Mountain View team is working on ways to monitor all of its electricity use. Employees can view the energy used by the building's thermostat, solar chargers, refrigerator, solar tree, and other devices via one central gateway. BMW researchers are also developing an easy-to-read interface to manage all this data. Ultimately, Dempster hopes, the company could sell that interface to customers interested in monitoring their energy consumption

在山景城园区，宝马正在尝试使用替代能源来驱动汽车。登普斯特说，太阳树能够产生足够的电力（以千瓦时为单位）来驱动宝马的电动汽车。在园区，太阳能板产生的电力能帮助维持建筑物里各种电器的运行。实际上，山景城的团队正致力于监测所有电力的使用情况。员工可以通过一个中心网关，看到建筑中的调温器、太阳能充电器、冰箱、太阳树和其他设备的耗电量。宝马的研究人员也在开发易读的界面来管理这些数据。登普斯特希望最终能够将这个界面出售给那些对监控能源消耗感兴趣的顾客。

Red light, green light

红灯，绿灯

Researchers are looking to figure out how to get BMW cars to communicate with stoplights. A team at Mountain View is trying to figure out which information from the stoplights to display to a driver to help improve safety and save fuel. Certain stoplight timing data -- like when a light will turn colors -- could help drivers make decisions that would improve the fuel economy of cars. Of course, Demptster says, it's important to fine-tune the formula so the display doesn't encourage drivers to gun it to beat a red.

研究人员正在研究解决如何让宝马汽车识别交通信号灯。山景城的一个小组正在尝试提取信号灯信息，传达给司机，以提高驾驶安全性，节省汽车燃料。特定的信号灯计时数据——比如灯会在什么时候变色——可以帮助司机做出决定，从而节约汽车的燃料。登普斯特说，当然，调整计算公式也很重要，以免这些信息促使驾驶员在信号灯变红前加大油门冲刺。

The battery shed

电池棚

In a shed in the parking lot, BMW keeps lithium-ion batteries after they've been removed from electric cars. There are all kinds of potential projects for these batteries, Dempster says. Someday, the industry could support an end-of-life lithium-ion battery market, depending on several factors, including the way we finance electric cars in the future.

在停车场的一个棚子里，宝马保存了从电动汽车上拆下来的锂离子电池。登普斯特说，用这些电池可以开展许多具有潜力的项目。有朝一日，这些项目可以根据一些因素，包括我们未来购买电动汽车的方式，来支持一个废弃锂离子电池的市场。

Right now, the shed of batteries provides energy to some of the car chargers at BMW. Usually, a fast charger accounts for 50 kilowatt-hours of demand to the Mountain View facility's typical 30 kW load, Dempster says. "So if we can use the battery instead of just charging from the grid, it's a much more cost-effective system. We're investigating that."

如今，电池棚为宝马的一些汽车充电器提供能源。通常情况下，山景城的标准电力负荷是30千瓦，而一个快速充电器需要50千瓦时的电力。登普斯特说：“所以如果我们能利用这些电池，而不是仅仅通过电网充电，就能创造更有效益的系统。我们目前正在研究这个课题。”

Power up

充电

Many employees at BMW are already aboard the EV (electric vehicle) train. There are car-charging stations in the Mountain View parking lot for employees and visitors. "We strongly believe that workplace charging is going to really increase the demand for EVs," says Dempster. Already, the chargers have been a bit of a hit at Mountain View. Since the campus' three chargers were installed in 2017, they've been used for 584 charges and have dispensed 4,310 kilowatt-hours of power.

宝马的许多员工已经开始使用电动汽车。山景城的停车场里有供员工和游客使用的汽车充电站。登普斯特说：“我们坚信在工作场所的充电服务会真正扩大电动汽车的需求。”这些充电器已经在山景城中引起了一些轰动。园区在2017年安装的三台充电器迄今已经充电584次，提供了4,310千瓦时的能量。