It’s a busy time for BMW with new updates across its range. But how will these cars look in five years time? Will that bright sparkling Beamer be as attractive after a few visits to your local garage?

The German manufacturer is extremely eager for people to keep using BMW servicing rather than independents. To help its cause it is actively pushing its inclusive servicing offers with all of the new models.

In short this allows you to make a single advance payment which covers you for the first five years or 60,000 miles, whichever comes first. It might seem like a big expense in the short term, but you will at least know the servicing costs in advance.

Never ones to shy away from a fight, it seems that BMW are wading into the electric vehicle battlefield. The German giants are heading into next month’s Detroit Auto Show with the impossibly posy-looking Concept ActiveE, with strong hints that it may actually see production.

The Concept ActiveE is the latest piece to roll out of BMW’s Project i campaign, which is dedicated to creating low-emission city cars and follows the MINI electric car out of the door and promises “CO2-free Mobility”.

BMW and Mini are on a collision course after it was announced that the German manufacturer are looking to introduce a new series called the 0-Series. As it suggests the new mini car will be designed to be smaller than the current 1-Series which means that it is likely that it will go into direct competition with the current Mini, which strangely is also owner by BMW.

It really does seem that the company is almost shooting itself in the foot with this latest move, admittedly having two cars competing in the market should mean that the company will grab large shares of the market, however it could of course backfire and the companies could end up taking sales off of each other.

BMW have just released a new car that is set to take the performance car world by storm. The new BMW M3 GTS is a hardcore version of the BMW M3.
The German manufacturer has decided to follow in the footsteps of Lamborghini, Porsche and Aston Martin in making an extreme race version of their supercar. This new M3 has been stripped of any weight and tips the scales at just 3300lb including the internal roll-cage and six-point race harness.

BMW fended off the competition, including Honda, to take their place at the top of the Fleet News reliability survey as the most reliable company car manufacturer.

Fleet News is a sister publication of the well respected car guide, Parker’s, and the annual survey covers 840,000 cars from 50 of the biggest UK contract hire companies.

Manufacturers were graded by counting the number of vehicles on a fleet per 1,000 that broke down.

BMW received the same points as Honda yet more companies voted for BMW as first placed manufacturer.

Although the German manufacturer’s profits have fallen thanks to this year’s trying economy, the BMW group remain optimistic. Thanks to recent indications of recovery, they are hoping to make a positive turnover by the end of the year across all their brands.

The fall in returns has been blamed on a decrease in consumer spending and has resulted in a loss of 73.8% (down to £70.5 million) with total sales of cars across the BMW group including BMW, Rolls Royce and MINI brands down 15.7% from the year before.

New images of the Lexus LF-Ch concept car, set to be launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show have been released, and the compact sportsback looks even better than Car Chat had first expected.

Following from the sketches of the concept car, leaked by Lexus a couple of weeks ago, these images of the actual concept car look stunning.

This model will aim to gain Lexus some of the market share in the sportsback sector, to rival the likes of the BMW 1 Series and Audi A3.

This new Lexus model will also be available in full hybrid making it the first fully electric car of its type.

The BMW 3 Series Saloon and Convertible have been named best compact executive car and best convertible. The two high-profile awards were awarded to the motoring company by th UK’s biggest selling weekly motoring magazine: Auto Express. 

The panel of motoring experts from the magazine assessed the two cars and later awarded them the two prestiduous awards.

The road test team from Auto Express said: ‘BMW’s superior dynamics won the day. A model range that includes everything from a diesel variant capable of 62.8mpg to the supercar-chasing 414bhp M3 is unbeatable’ about the Saloon.

Just after they decided to withdraw from F1 at the end of this season, BMW announced that they will bring a highly efficient sports concept car to the Frankfurt Motor Show. The EfficientDynamics Vision will be taken to the show in September along with BMW’s production versions of the ActiveHybrid7 and ActiveHybrid X6 concepts that were shown at the show previously.

A member of the BMW management board, Dr Klaus Draeger, said in his statement: ‘the BMW EfficientDrive Vision will demonstrate how efficient a sports car can be.’

BMW are set to release a smaller and more affordable version of the X5 in the coming months.

Having just launched the MINI First – a cheaper entry level model – BMW look set to continue their pursuit of cornering the mid end as well as the high end of the market.

The BMW X1 will come equipped with all of the EfficientDynamics features aimed at eco-friendly motoring including start-stop technology and Brake Energy Regeneration, amongst other Green extras.

Eco friendly motoring is becoming increasingly vital for our collective carbon footprint and more and more manufacturers are investing in research and development to envelope the best green technology into all types of vehicles.

BMW have won two Green awards in the last 12 months and look set to pick up more in the coming months with the release of the new MINI One D.

With a 90hp engine with 6mg fuel economy, this low end commuter car is a must for those that want a low CO2 emitting little hatchback with high fuel economy.

The British icon, the Mini is of course celebrating its 50th anniversary this year but has also recently passed a noteworthy milestone.

BMW’s MINI plant in Oxford has now built more than 1.5 million units of their award winning hot hatch since 2001.

The 1.5 millionth MINI was a MINI Clubman, red of course, was seen heading off the production line by Business Minister Ian Lucas and BMW Group board member Ian Robertson.

Having been acquired by BMW Group, the MINI has been hugely popular worldwide, thanks to the design, ergonomics and engineering excellence of Bavarian Motor Works.

The Mini E, an electric powered version of the iconic car, is being trialled in the US by 450 people in New York, New Jersey and California as BMW look for detailed feedback to see how they can get an electric powered car on the market by 2012.

BMW have invested heavily into lowering CO2 emissions in the last few years but they hope that the Mini E will eliminate them altogether if it becomes a viable consumer option.

BMW are targeting the US market in a big way by opening 17 more MINI dealerships across America during the next 18 months.

This is just an example of how dominant the iconic hot hatch has become since its reincarnation by BMW in 2001.

The MINI has since been a big success in the US and the inclusion of these 17 new dealerships will take the total US Mini dealerships to 100.

The popularity of the MINI across the Pond has been even higher than BMW had ever imagined and the German car giants aim to better last year’s sales total of just over 54,000 units even though the US is experiencing economic difficulties.

The new BMW Z4 is receiving favourable reviews and looks set to be incredibly popular, especially if we are in for the ‘Indian summer’ that we have been predicted.

Car Chat started the ball rolling in April as we gave the new Z4 the thumbs up, in fact, we didn’t want to give the car back to BMW but were forced to by our financers!

Since our review, many well respected publications have been impressed with BMW’s latest drop-top, none more so that probably the most respected car journalist of them all, Jeremy Clarkson.