As promised at the beginning of the year, the BMW Group has delivered more than 100,000 electrified vehicles to customers worldwide in 2017. An eye-catching light installation marked this milestone by transforming the BMW Group headquarters, the world-famous “Four-Cylinder” in the north of Munich, into a battery. The BMW Group selected this glowing symbol to represent the technological change taking place in mobility.
By 2025, the company will offer 25 fully electric and plug-in hybrid models worldwide. The fifth generation of electric drivetrain and battery technology, available from 2021, uses scalable, modular electrification kits that will allow all model series to be fitted with every type of drivetrain. For its BMW i electric brand, which was founded in 2011, the company has already secured the naming rights from BMW i1 to i9, as well as from BMW iX1 to iX9. Next year will see the launch of the BMW i8 Roadster, followed in 2019 by a fully electric MINI; in 2020, by the electric version of the BMW X3 and in 2021 by the brand’s new technology flagship, the BMW iNext, which will combine electro-mobility with autonomous driving and new interior connectivity options for the first time in a series-production model.
Thanks to its early focus on electro-mobility, the BMW Group has already achieved a leading position in the electrified vehicles market. BMW Group’s share of the electrified vehicle segment is more than three times its share of the market for traditional models. While electrified vehicles now account for two per cent of new vehicle registrations across all manufacturers in Europe, the BMW Group figure is already six per cent. Electrified models are in especially high demand in western Europe and the USA, for example, where they account for seven per cent of total BMW brand sales in both markets. In Scandinavia, where the BMW i3 is the best-selling BMW model, one in four BMWs sold is electrified.
“We deliver on our promises,” said Harald Krüger, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “This 99-metre-high signal is lighting the way into the era of electro-mobility. Selling 100,000 electrified cars in one year is an important milestone, but this is just the beginning for us. Since the introduction of the BMW i3 2013, we’ve delivered over 200,000 electrified cars to our customers and by 2025, we will offer 25 electrified models to our customers. Our early focus on electro-mobility has made this success possible – and electro-mobility will continue to be my measure of our future success.”