Singapore – As promised at the beginning of the year, the BMW Group has delivered more than 100,000 electrified vehicles to customers worldwide in 2017. This highlights the company’s leadership role when it comes to electro-mobility. An eye-catching light installation will mark this milestone on the road to the mobility of the future, with the BMW Group headquarters, the world-famous “Four-Cylinder” in Munich, transformed into a battery. The BMW Group selected this glowing symbol to represent the technological change taking place in mobility.
“We deliver on our promises,” said Harald Krüger, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG. “This 99-metre-high signal is lighting the way into the era of electro-mobility. Selling 100,000 electrified cars in one year is an important milestone, but this is just be the beginning for us. Since the introduction of the BMW i3 2013, we’ve delivered over 200,000 electrified cars to our customers and by 2025, we will offer 25 electrified models to our customers. Our early focus on electro-mobility has made this success possible – and electro-mobility will continue to be my measure for our future success.”
Flexible electrification across all model series
Electro-mobility is an essential element of the NUMBER ONE > NEXT corporate strategy, which continues to expand the BMW Group’s position as the leading provider of individual premium mobility and mobility services. By 2025, the company will offer 25 fully electric and plug-in hybrid models worldwide. The fifth generation of electric drive train and battery technology, available from 2021, uses scalable, modular electrification kits that will allow all model series to be fitted with every type of drive train.
Next year, BMW Group will launch the BMW i8 Roadster, followed in 2019 by a fully electric MINI, the electric version of the BMW X3 in 2020 and the brand’s new technology flagship, the BMW iNext in 2021.
BMW Group leading provider of electro-mobility
As BMW Group centralized on electro-mobility, the company has already achieved a leading position in the electrified vehicles market. According to the independent POLK/HIS Report (published on 7 Dec 2017), the BMW Group has a clear lead over its competitors when it comes to registration of new fully-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in Europe, with a market share of 21 per cent. This means the BMW Group’s share of the electrified vehicle segment is more than three times its share of the market for traditional models. While electrified vehicles now account for two per cent of new vehicle registrations across all manufacturers in Europe, the BMW Group figure is already six per cent. In other words, the BMW Group holds a disproportionately large share of the growing market for electro-mobility in Europe. The company’s position is similarly strong when it comes to the worldwide market – the company has a 10% share of the global electrified vehicle market.
Complementing the electrified four-wheel vehicles offered by the BMW Group, the company also manufactures the ideal two-wheeled product for premium urban electro-mobility: the BMW C evolution. Following the introduction of a new battery, which extends the scooter’s range to 160km, sales of this electrified scooter have growth by 80% compared to the first 11 months of last year.
A shining symbol
To celebrate this meaningful milestone, the iconic BMW “Four-Cylinder” headquarters town is being transformed by a lighting installation into four upright batteries, representing the forward thinking which is a fundamental part of BMW’s DNA.
