The BMW Group is accelerating its electromobility expansion program, with the 25 electrified models to be introduced by 2023, two years earlier than the initial 2025 target.
With flexible vehicle architectures for fully-electric, plug-in hybrid and combustion engine drive trains, the company is able to respond quickly to changing conditions. More than half of the 25 models will be fully electric.
We expect to see a steep growth curve towards 2025: Sales of our electrified vehicles should increase by an average of 30 percent every year.—Harald Krüger, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG
By the end of 2019, the company aims to have more than half a million vehicles with fully-electric or plug-in hybrid drive trains on the roads. Within two years, the company will offer five fully-electric series-production vehicles.Alongside the BMW i3, with more than 150,000 units built to date, this year will see the start of production of the fully-electric MINI at Plant Oxford (UK). This will be followed in 2020 by the fully-electric BMW iX3 from Shenyang (China) and, in 2021, by the BMW iNEXT, which will be produced in Dingolfing (Germany), and the BMW i4 from Plant Munich (Germany).
Updated, extended electric-range plug-in-hybrid versions of the BMW 3 Series, BMW 7 Series and BMW X5 were presented alongside the new BMW X3 plug-in hybrid at this year’s Geneva Motor Show. A few weeks later, the updated plug-in hybrid variant of the BMW X1 Long Wheelbase Version, which is produced locally for the Chinese market, was shown at the Shanghai Auto Show.
Later this summer, plug-in hybrid versions of the BMW 5 Series and BMW 2 Series Active Tourer with next-generation technology and longer electric range will also be released. These will be followed next year by the BMW X1 and the BMW 3 Series Touring as plug-in hybrid models.
This diversity of electrified drive concepts underlines the importance of technology openness on the road to sustainable mobility.
The BMW Group has always promoted emission-free mobility and advocated for its effective support. However, the demands of future mobility will be multifaceted. There will not be just one single solution that meets the mobility needs of all customers around the world. People living in rural areas, for instance, need different technological solutions for mobility than those in cities.
BMW eDrive Zones standard in plug-in hybrids from 2020. The effective role plug-in hybrids can play in achieving emission-free mobility in cities is demonstrated by the BMW eDrive Zones function, which will be standard in BMW plug-in hybrids from 2020: In cities that establish “green zones” solely for emission-free driving, geofencing technology will be able to recognize these automatically.
When the vehicle enters one of these zones, it will automatically switch to pure electric driving mode. In this way, BMW is paving the way for plug-in hybrids to receive the same access rights to green zones as fully-electric vehicles, since they behave the same in these areas.
This new type of operating strategy boosts the potential of plug-in hybrid vehicles to reduce emissions, BMW says. After the idea was born, the first real-life test for the BMW eDrive Zones function is the BMW Group’s “Electric City Drive” pilot project, in conjunction with the City of Rotterdam and the local Erasmus University.
Source: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/06/20190625-bmw.html
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