All BMW plants currently use energy from renewable sources. The British, Mexican and Chinese plants use solar energy, the South African plants use biogas and the German plants use wind power. In 2021, all production of the BMW Group will be climate-neutral at its plants.
Now BMW will start to produce aluminium using solar power. Aluminium production requires a lot of energy, so the use of renewable energy, such as solar power, in its production, significantly reduces CO2 emissions.
Aluminium produced using solar power is used to make vehicle bodies and power line components. The increase in electric mobility makes aluminium an increasingly important material because, due to its lightweight, it compensates for the weight of heavy batteries in electric vehicles.
BMW aims to have more than seven million electric vehicles on the roads by 2030, two-thirds of which will be fully electric.
The CO2 emissions of electric vehicles are lower during the operation phase than those powered by an internal combustion engine, but the production of battery cells and aluminium is very energy-consuming. Without measures, vehicle-specific CO2 emissions will increase by more than a third by 2030. BMW wants to stop this development and reverse its direction. The company even aims to reduce CO2 emissions by 20 per cent per vehicle compared to 2019 levels.
via cnbc.
