BMW: EV Sales Exceeding Expectations, Especially In European Markets With Good Incentives & Infrastructure

August 15th, 2016 by James Ayre

In an announcement that will surprise no one who has been paying attention to the electric vehicle market, BMW has revealed that sales of its electrified models have been exceeding expectations … especially in European markets with strong incentives and good charging infrastructure (Norway, the Netherlands, etc.).

While electrified models only accounted for around 4% of BMW’s overall Western Europe sales in July, this figure climbed much, much higher in select markets.

To provide some examples: 43% of BMW 3 Series registrations in the Netherlands during July were for the BMW 330e plug-in hybrid (PHEV); also in the Netherlands, 26% of 2 Series Active Tourer registrations were for the BMW 225xe. Sales in the Scandinavian countries followed a similar pattern — PHEV versions accounted for around 45% of all BMW 3 Series sales, and around 55% of all BMW 2 Series Active Tourer sales.

A BMW AG Board of Management member with responsibility for Sales and Marketing, Dr Ian Robertson, commented: “While we see growth across our range, the fact that the planned production for our electrified 7 Series, 3 Series, and 2 Series Active Tourer models is already sold out this year demonstrates our strategy of rolling out electrification on all models is the right one. We will, of course, now respond to this high customer demand.”

It should probably be noted here that while many of these “electrified” models are technically PHEVs, not many of them possess serious all-electric ranges. They do allow for the use of the various national-level incentives on offer in the region, but don’t actually function in all-electric very often (unlike the Chevy Volt PHEV, which has over 3 times more electric range than many of them). It could be argued that BMW is simply trying to game the incentives systems, while putting off true electrification as long as possible.

There’s a fast-approaching deadline to that strategy, though, as there are a number of compelling EVs set to appear on the market in the coming years.

The press release provides a few more figures on BMW sales if you want to have a look.

What’s your opinion of BMW’s approach and progress to date?











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