Green Power is Goring Some Sacred Cows at BMW

It's a powerful symbol of BMW's newly promoted commitment to "green" technology that the designers of the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics hybrid-powered concept car were allowed to mess with BMW's famous kidney grille.

Every automotive brand has its sacred cows, and for BMW, the twin-oval "kidney" grille is one of them.

BMW already gored another sacred cow, its Formula One racing team, in a move that BMW spun as a step towards greening up its image. Not to mention saving many, many millions of dollars a year.

The BMW Vision EfficientDynamics car is a hybrid that runs on a diesel motor, battery power, or both. The name of the car is a mouthful, but BMW says the "Vision" designation connotes a concept car that's long on innovation and far away from mass production, if it ever gets mass-produced. A "concept" in the BMW lexicon is a car that's probably close to what a finished product will look like.

The grille is one of the many innovations on board the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics car. Instead of fixed, thin, vertical metallic slats, the grille is made of wide, translucent louvers that open or close like flaps. The open position is for running on diesel; the closed position is for running on battery power.

To be sure, the BMW grille's proportions have evolved over the decades, from tall and skinny back when cars had big, vertically oriented radiators, to squashed and round, as cars got more aerodynamic. But it shows BMW's hybrid team carries some weight, if they were allowed to invent a grille that also opens and closes.