BMW Aiming For 500,000 Plug-In Electric Vehicle Sales By 2020

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The new 2020 plug-in electric vehicles sales target at BMW is 500,000 units, the company’s CEO, Harald Krueger, has stated in an interview with the Germany newspaper WirtschaftsWoche.

To put that another way, BMW is now aiming to have sold half a million plug-in electric vehicles worldwide by the end of 2019 — meaning that the company is aiming for sales to pick up quite a bit by then, as “only” 100,000 plug-in electric BMWs have been sold worldwide as of the end of 2017.

To elaborate on that, Krueger told the German weekly newspaper noted above that deliveries of electrified vehicles were to increase by a “medium double-digit percentage” during 2018. Presumably, 2019 would then see a similar increase, if the new goal is to be achieved.

Reuters provides more: “The group said on Monday it had hit its target of selling 100,000 fully electric cars this year around the world, benefiting from strong demand in western Europe and the United States for models such as the i3 and the 2-series plug-in hybrid Active Tourer.

“He said the carmaker would nonetheless keep making and selling cars with combustion engines to help finance a gradual shift to electrified cars. Unlike his peer Matthias Mueller, the CEO of Volkswagen, he rejected the idea of doing away with tax subsidies for diesel.”

The rationale for that latter part? “Bearing customers in mind who bought diesels, that is unjustifiable,” Krueger explained.

To be clear, in case you didn’t catch that above, the 500,000 target (and the just-passed 100,000 milestone) include both fully electric cars and various plug-in hybrid models that have small batteries (not that much electric range, but enough for most daily commutes, and not that much power from the electric portion of the drivetrain either since the max power output of the batteries is quite limited).

So, the takeaway is that BMW is aiming for arguably marginal improvements to electric vehicle sales while continuing to cash in as much as possible with petrol/gas and diesel vehicles.

The reference to Volkswagen’s Mueller is a reference to comments made earlier this month “calling” for Germany’s diesel vehicle subsidies to be redirected towards electric vehicles. Germany’s Acting Transport Minister Christian Schmidt stated publicly following Mueller’s comments that such a thing was not going to happen (perhaps Mueller well knew that). According to the transport minister, diesel vehicles are still “needed.”

BMW is currently aiming to release 12 all-electric models by 2025.


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James Ayre

James Ayre's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy.

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