宝马未来实验室探秘

太阳树

    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。

Solar tree

    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.