BMW reached a major electric vehicle sales milestone even though the market is cooling down
BMW car is celebrating its millionth electric vehicle (EV) sales as well as growing demand for battery-powered models, as rival brands experience weaker demand.
The BMW Group – which includes Mini and Rolls-Royce – reported its global electric vehicle sales rose 27.9% between January and March compared with the same period last year, with 82,700 vehicles sold. sold out in three months.
This includes the auto giant’s one millionth electric vehicle since the BMW i3 went into production in September 2013, although the company has not revealed what the milestone vehicle is.
Its growing electric vehicle sales accounted for 13.9% of the 594,671 vehicles sold across the three brands in the quarter, up just 1.1% year-on-year.
By comparison, German rival Mercedes-Benz posted an 8% drop in electric vehicle sales in the same period with 47,500 vehicles delivered, in line with the brand’s overall quarterly sales decline.
Electric vehicle industry leader Tesla also reported an 8.5% decreaseit did not grow in a quarter for the first time since 2020.
Based on BloombergBMW Group’s year-on-year increase in electric vehicle sales could see the company’s battery-powered vehicles account for 20% of sales by 2024 – another important milestone for the transmission manufacturer system.
BMW takes note i4, iX3, iX1, iX And i7 Electric vehicles are “especially in demand,” it said i5 is “proving particularly popular”.
In Australia, the first three months of the year saw BMW sell 1423 electric vehicles, with the iX1 (sales 476) and i4 (sales 457) rounding out the top 10 in the battery electric vehicle market.
Although certain regions such as Europe will ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars by 2035, BMW has not yet established its own roadmap for going electric-only globally.
Last yearFrank Weber, member of the BMW Group development board of directors, detailed why the brand has not yet committed to going fully electric.
“Ask yourself, ‘What have I done for a 100% BEV economy? [battery electric vehicle] Are you ready?”, Mr. Weber said.
“This economy really covers four sectors: enough green electricity for manufacturing, for cell manufacturing, for anything you can imagine and certainly to drive those vehicles.
“That means green raw materials are always available, whether it’s Europe, America, China, wherever you are and wherever you produce, there needs to be a truly green supply chain of raw materials there.
“Charging infrastructure is a given – without it it won’t work. And the last thing is: if you don’t end the material cycle with recycling, the BEV system will not be sustainable.
“This is the BEV economy. So what is clear to us? These are fundamental structural changes to our industry and sometimes it’s funny when discussing that we are under the impression that this can be done overnight – it’s crazy!”
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