In a nondescript industrial building in suburban Detroit, a $50,000 BMW is lying in pieces. The place looks like an illegal chop shop, where stolen vehicles are disassembled to be sold as parts. The body is on the floor, the chassis propped on a stand, the powertrain spread out in tiny bits on a table, the seats on somebody’s desk.
But A. Sandy Munro is no car thief: he paid full price for the BMW i3 he subsequently tore apart. Nor is he selling it for parts. He is, however, selling information about this remarkable car to anyone who is interested. And rest assured, a lot of people in the auto industry want to know its secrets.
“This is, without a question of a doubt, the most advanced vehicle on the planet,” said Munro, chief executive of Munro & Associates, whose firm specializes in reverse engineering for the auto industry among others. “It’s as revolutionary as the Model T was when it came out.”...
Munro is still crunching the numbers, but is convinced that despite the high cost of carbon fiber and lithium-ion batteries, BMW has designed the i3 to be profitable at a volume of about 20,000 vehicles a year. Given the regulatory challenges the industry faces, he said, “Other carmakers are going to be dragged up to the chalkboard and told, ‘Do this’.”...
