BMW pulls ahead its electrification plans by two yearsBMW pulls ahead its electrification plans by two years

Just eight weeks ago, at its annual shareholders meeting, BMW announced that it will build 12 new all-electric cars by 2025, along with 13 plug-in hybrid models. 
Now the company has moved up that schedule by two years and says it will have 25 new “electrified” models on the market by 2023, and that the majority of them will be fully electric.
At its #NextGen technology conference in Munich on Tuesday, BMW Chairman Harald Krüger told the media and investors, “we are moving sustainable mobility up a gear,” in response to increasing demand for electric cars. Krüger said the company expects sales of electric cars to increase by 30 percent per year through 2025.
“By 2021, we will have doubled our sales of electrified vehicles compared with 2019,” he said in a statement. “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.”
Prototype for BMW iNext electric SUV due in 2021
At the Geneva auto show in March, the company showed three new plug-in hybrids, a new X3 xDrive 30e alongside the revamped X5 xDrive 45e and the new 530e, all with significantly longer electric ranges than before. The X5 xDrive 45e is aiming to go 50 miles on a charge (depending on the test cycle.)
BMW has also announced that it is expanding its factory in Dingolfing, Germany, to build batteries for its whole lineup of electric cars.
The company has teamed up with Mercedes-Benz to develop an ecosystem for electric cars, including home chargers, car and ride-sharing services.
Krüger also announced that BMW’s new plug-in hybrids will incorporate “eDrive zones” in their navigation software. As long as a destination is mapped in the navigation system, the car will automatically save enough battery charge to traverse the emissions free zones that are appearing in more and more cities on electrons—and maximize the efficiency of electric driving.
BMW plans to roll out the iX3 as well as a new electric Mini by the end of this year, to be followed by an electric sedan (rumored to be called the i4) in 2021, and then the iNext SUV, which could be an iX5 or an iX7.

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