BMW going all in on electric vehicles

MUNICH, Germany—BMW A.G. has moved up the timetable for a previously announced electrification plan by two years, according to company officials at the car maker's #NEXTGen 2019 gathering in Munich, who said BMW will have 25 electrified vehicles on the market by 2023 instead of 2025.

Starting with the 2020-model iX3, BMW will launch an onslaught of electric and plug-in hybrid cars, crossovers and motorcycles unprecedented in company history.

The list of coming EVs and PHEVs will include 12 hybrids and 13 pure battery electric cars, the company announced at its #NEXTGen 2019 technopalooza press event in Munich recently. Exactly how many of those will make it to the U.S. market was not part of the announcement.

"We are moving up a gear in the transformation toward sustainable mobility, thereby making our company fit for the future," said Harald Krueger, chairman of the board of management of BMW.

"Over the past two years, we have consistently taken numerous decisions that we are now bringing to the roads. By 2021, we will have doubled our sales of electrified vehicles compared with 2019. We will offer 25 electrified vehicles already in 2023—two years earlier than originally planned. 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."

The plan is to use new architectures for cars and crossovers that can accept battery electrics, plug-in hybrid electrics and traditional gasoline or even diesel powertrains. The electric powertrain hinges on a new electric drive unit, officially labeled at #NEXTGen 2019 as the "Highly Integrated Electric Powertrain Unit of the Fifth Generation." Not exactly a marketing-friendly phrase.

Development of The Unit, as we'll call it, benefited greatly from BMW's participation in Formula E racing, according to engineers present at the show. Compared with the electric motor in the i3, for instance, the Formula E motor is half the weight, one-third the size and puts out twice the power. Thus, the Fifth-Gen Power Unit displayed at the show looked about the size of a large microwave oven and included the motor, gearbox and powertrain electronics in that space, all engineered without the use of rare-earth metals. Output was listed at 730 hp.

On the stand with the powertrain unit display was a BMW 5-Series that had two independently operating motors in back, one for each rear wheel, and one motor up front. BMW claims that setup would be good for 0-62 mph in 2.8 seconds.

"The independent rear motors allow for some very dynamic driving," said one of the engineers present.

BMW also revealed two electrified concepts at #NEXTGen 2019—the Vision M Next hybrid sports car and the all-electric Motorrad Vision DC Roadster motorcycle. A camoflauged Mini Electric was briefly driven past an audience of journalists, too. An i4 all-electric sedan and iNext crossover are both due in 2021.

The company plans to have more than half a million EVs and PHEVs on the road worldwide by year-end. Within two years, it will offer five fully electric vehicles: the i3, which is already in production; the Mini EV, which will start production later this year; the iX3 produced in China in 2020; the iNEXT; and the i4, the latter two also in 2021.

BMW reminded attendees at #NEXTGen 2019 that it currently produces plug-in hybrid versions of several of its vehicles.