BMW Solar-Powered Bamboo & Carbon Fiber Charging Port

Originally published on Gas2.

So you’ve just dropped $135,000 on the brand new BMW i8 plug-in hybrid. Congratulations! But you’re not going to plug that into just any old charging port. Oh no, you need something classy, expensive, and of course, sustainable. What you need is this eco-friendly carport and recharging station, from BMW of course.

Designed specifically to fit either the BMW i3 or i8, the carport is constructed of bamboo beams held together by carbon fiber at the joints. These materials are used throughout both vehicles as a means to shed weight, as well as add  a touch of class. The roof is comprised of glass-on-glass solar panels built to last at least 30 years, though just how much juice it can send to your electrified Bimmer, the Bavarian brand won’t say. They will say that, if you have excess energy left over after charging your car, it will feed that energy back into your home to offset electrical costs.

It’s a more attractive alternative to the traditional, in-garage charging ports, or even worse, those plebeian public charging ports. It’s interesting that BMW is foisting this cool car charger on owners though, instead of installing them around electric car hotspots like L.A. Then again, the amount of power they provide, even in sunny SoCal, probably isn’t enough to be practical.

Cool doesn’t always have to be practical though, right?

Source: BMW

BMW Solar-Powered Bamboo & Carbon Fiber Charging Port was originally published on CleanTechnica.

To read more from CleanTechnica, join over 50,000 other subscribers: Google+ | Email | Facebook | RSS | Twitter.