Can you imagine driving an electric car in total confidence on a wet road at over 120 mph? Can you imagine driving an electric car over 600 miles without having to stop? Can you imagine driving 400 miles in less than 4 hours? The BMW 640d Xdrive can do all this. Some Germans living outside big cities will have the opportunity to test its abilities every day, and they will. It’s hard to imagine to most of us living in countries where speed is a sin so bad it can take you to jail, but some Germans drive at 100 mph or more every day. And few cars are better at this than the BMW 640d Xdrive.

With 313 hp under the hood, the twin-turbocharged diesel inline-six is never out of breath. The car goes from 0 to 62 mph in 5.2 seconds, and the sophisticated electronically-controlled four-wheel drive system give it true all weather capability. Yet it got a 41 mpg combined rating. That is 240 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per mile (combined). An incredibly low value for such a high performance car. So much that we may use it as a benchmark. The whole world looks for solutions to reduce those greenhouse gases emissions even more, possibly to zero, with renewable natural gas, electricity or hydrogen, but as long as those new energies won’t be able to match what diesel can do, don’t be surprised if only a minority support them.