The numbers are in and it seems like BMW had a great start in 2021, looking for a speedy recovery after the hellish time we all had in 2020. The first quarter of 2021 brought along an all-time high record for the period for BMW and the electrified segment was not left out. According to the Bavarian company, sales of electrified cars in their portfolio more than doubled compared to the same period of 2020.
To be more precise, the BMW Group sold 70,207 electrified cars between January and March. By electrified cars, BMW refers not just to purely electric vehicles but also includes plug-in hybrid models in this category. “Our customers are very interested in both of these vehicles. That impressively underlines our perfect planning: the BMW iX and BMW i4 are coming at exactly the right time,” said Peter Nota, BMW Board of Management member, chief of Sales.
BMW plans to go even bigger in the future and add more purely electric models to its range. At the moment, BMW is only selling the i3, MINI Cooper SE, and BMW iX3 as purely electric vehicles, with the latter only going on sale in Europe earlier this year. We should also be seeing the first BMW iX and i4 models go on sale this summer, for a total of five purely electric choices in the range. However, the Bavarians are planning to have a dozen fully-electric models on the road in 2023.
Between now and 2025, the BMW Group plans to increase its sales of fully-electric models by an average of well over 50% per year – more than ten times the number of units sold in 2020. The company expects fully-electric vehicles to account for at least 50% of its global sales in 2030. The MINI brand is likely to reach this milestone already in 2027. By the early 2030s, MINI will be the first BMW Group brand with a product range that is exclusively fully electric.
