BMW has achieved, what is calls, “a milestone in [its] transformation” with the delivery of its one-millionth electrified vehicle, and has already made plans to deliver the two-millionth before 2025.
The announcement follows a successful handover of the Bavarian brand’s one-millionth electrified vehicle – an iX xDrive40 – since the company’s electrified-focused ‘BMW i’ sub-brand was introduced in 2011. Alongside their new vehicle, the owner was also gifted a BMW Wallbox (plus installation, gratis) and credit for Europe-wide battery top ups via the BMW Charging network. The handover was made in person at the BMW Welt facility in Munich.
BMW iX
Not ready to rest on its green laurels just yet, BMW has now claimed that the company’s two-millionth delivery will arrive before 2025 as the BMW Group, as a whole, looks to release 10 million fully electric models onto the roads within the next decade as part of its electrified expansion. The most immediate goal is to double BEV sales in 2022.
“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,” explained BMW’s Pieter Nota in an official statement. “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.”
This electrified expansion was aided by the arrival of the iX SUV and the i4 sports coupe a few weeks ago, though this is just the beginning. The i7 – the electric counterpart to BMW’s flagship 7 Series luxury sedan – recently underwent extreme weather testing in the Arctic Circle ahead of its 2022 launch, with an electric version of the X1 SUV set to follow later in the year. On top of that, BMW has also confirmed that an electrified 5 Series sedan – the i5 – will land in 2023, as indeed will the all-electric Spectre from sister brand Rolls-Royce. Both MINI and Rolls-Royce are set to become all-electric by the early 2030s.
Unsurprisingly, the ‘Neue Klasse’ – a series of electric SUVs that revives the ‘New Class’ nomenclature adopted by the sedans and coupes of 1962 to 1977 that saved BMW from bankruptcy – is expected to make “a significant contribution” towards sales from the middle of the decade onwards. The first, rumoured to be either an electric equivalent of the 3 Series or the X3 SUV, is expected to land in 2025.
