Three years since its inception in November 2013, BMW’s i brand reached a significant milestone of selling 1,00,000 units of electric and hybrid cars across the globe. This includes the all-electric vehicles – i3 and i8, as well as the hybrids that comes under the iPerformance brand.
The major contributor to the sale figure is the five-door urban electric hatch, the i3, which alone counts for more than 60,000 units. The electrified sports car – BMW i8 found 10,000 takers since the middle of 2014. The rest of the cars to contribute approximately 30,000 are plug-in hybrids which are under the BMW iPerformance label and includes cars like the 3 Series 330e, the X5 xDrive40e, 2 Series Active Tourer 225xe and 740Le xDrive.
The Bavarian manufacturer recently introduced a plug-in hybrid Mini Countryman which is expected to be on the roads sometime next year. Furthermore, the company has confirmed plans to introduce i8 Roadster in 2018, ahead of a fully electric Mini in 2019 and a purely electric-powered BMW X3 in 2020. Arrive next decade and BMW plans to introduce another, larger BMW i model with an electric drive and autonomous driving called the BMW iNEXT.
Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Harald Krüger, commenting on the occasion said, “BMW i remains our spearhead in terms of innovation and it will continue to open up groundbreaking technologies for the BMW Group. When it comes to electric drivetrains, we’ve already successfully managed to put this technology transfer on the road. The next technological advance we will address is automated driving, where the BMW iNEXT will set a new benchmark.”
