If NBA Jam’s Tim Kitzrow was announcing BMW’s fully-electric vehicle (EV) sales figures for Q1 2022, he would have said, “They’re heating up!” For Q2 2022 he would be saying, “They’re on fire!” Am I the only one who remembers that console game from the early 90s? Can anyone else visualize Kitzrow sitting in a BMW board meeting, shout-casting vehicle statistics and pointing at line graphs?
Anyway, my point is that BMW has been selling a lot of EVs. In fact, they’ve over doubled EV sales since this time last year.
Let’s look at some concrete numbers. A combined total of 1,016,541 ICE and EV-powered vehicles were sold worldwide in the first half of 2022. Of those, 75,891 were fully electric BMWs and Minis. As more EVs are introduced globally this year, we’ll see EV sales numbers continue to grow. BMW explains, “This year, the BMW i3 (in China), the BMW iX1 and the BMW i7 complement the existing models. Series production of the all-electric luxury sedan BMW i7 began on July 1 at the BMW plant in Dingolfing. Next year, the BMW i5, the all-electric Mini Countryman, and the all-battery-electric Rolls-Royce Spectre will follow.” While the electric Mini Cooper SE coupe has been around for a couple of years, BMW teased a one-off convertible version just last week.
In a recent press release, BMW speculated that half of its sales could be electric before 2030. BMW has said that in just three years, “The electric Neue Klasse will make a significant contribution to BMW Group sales.” They added, “The Mini brand will have an all-electric product range by the early 2030s, while Rolls-Royce will become an all-electric brand from 2030. All future new models from BMW Motorrad in the field of urban mobility will also be fully electric, like the BMW CE 04.”
The speed at which BMW is building and releasing EVs should come as no surprise. BMW has been following their iFactory “lean, green, and digital,” strategy in many aspects of their vehicles’ lifecycles, including CO2-free vehicle production in Debrecen Hungary and closed-loop recycling in China. Clean production, improved recycling, using hybrid power in BMW Motorsport, and record sales of the engaging EV M variants like the i4 M50 and iX M60–it sounds like a slam dunk to me!—Mike Bevels
[Photos courtesy of BMW]