On December 6, BMW delivered its 1,000,000th vehicle with an electrified drivetrain, an iX xDrive40, to its new owner at the BMW Welt. The iX was personally handed over by BMW board member Pieter Nota, and the delivery also included a BMW Wallbox for at-home charging. The delivery of the 1,000,000th electrified BMW, a term which encompasses both hybrids and vehicles powered exclusively by electricity, occurred less than two years after the delivery of the 500,000th unit, which was a BMW 330e.
“The delivery of our one-millionth electrified vehicle marks a milestone in our transformation—and we already have the next one in our sights: We aim to break through the two-million mark in just two years,” said Nota. “Thanks to our steadily growing product range, we are setting ourselves ambitious sales targets, in particular for fully-electric vehicles: In 2022, we aim to double this year’s sales. By 2025 the BMW Group will have delivered around two million fully-electric vehicles to customers. We expect at least one out of every two BMW Group vehicles sold to be fully electric by 2030,” Nota continued.
The special delivery also took place roughly one week after the first series production examples of the BMW i4 were delivered. “With the BMW i4, we have absolutely struck a chord. You can see this from the very high demand for this car. We are delighted to be expanding our electrified product line-up with this sporty, fully-electric Gran Coupé at exactly the right time and to present the first vehicles to our customers today—three months earlier than originally planned,” explained Senior Vice President BMW Group Market Germany Bernhardt Kuhnt, who formerly served as President and CEO of BMW NA.
With models that cater to core segments already on the way in the form of the i4 and iX, BMW is advancing the electrification of other models. These include bookends like purely-electric versions of the 7 Series and X1, which are currently in the pipeline, along with an electric version of the 5 Series, a perennial volume seller. An entirely new platform currently referred to as the Neue Klasse is also on the way, due to arrive in the middle of the decade. BMW Group brands Mini and Rolls-Royce have also announced plans to go all-electric from approximately 2030 onward.
“One in four BMWs delivered in Germany today already comes with a fully-electric drive train or is a plug-in hybrid. By the end of the third quarter, around 41,900 electrified BMWs and 8,820 electrified Minis had been delivered to customers this year. The fully-electric Mini Cooper SE alone already accounts for about 20 percent of MINI brand sales. The BMW Group has almost doubled its sales of electrified models in Germany compared with the previous year, at around 25 percent,” added Kuhnt.—Alex Tock
[Photos courtesy BMW AG.]
