BMW in search of leadership in electric car design

At its annual shareholders meeting held in Munich, BMW presented its plans to launch 12 new 100% electric vehicles in 2025, five of them in the next two years.

Along with the i3, the first five will include the Mini Electric, which will go on sale later this year, the iX3 SUV next year, the i4 sedan and the iNext SUV in 2021.

Together with the 12 electric cars by 2025, the company announced that it will sell 13 plug-in hybrids, which will include the next versions of this longer-range type of series 3, 7, X3 and X5. He presented the new line of plug-in hybrids, which offer up to 80 kilometers of electrical autonomy at the Geneva Motor Show.

In total, BMW will have more than 10 plug-in and electric models on the market by the end of next year. With all this electrification, the company also announced that it will halve its existing transmission variants. Several of these cars are known for offering virtually every type of conventional powertrain in a single model, from I-4s, I-6s and M V-8s to plug-in, and soon electric, hybrids, with and without four-wheel drive.

With plug-in electric and hybrid models, it is much easier to use one or two small motors as range expanders, and vary the size and power of the battery pack that depends on those small motors so that they work on their own on different models.

The company also gave more details about its upcoming cinematic chains for electric vehicles, pointing out that the next iX3 SUV will be the first model to use the architecture of the fifth generation of BMW kinematic chains, which It uses denser battery modules to save weight and costs, and thus increase capacity.

The fifth-generation architecture will also use rare earth metal-free engines, the company said, making them cheaper and perhaps easier to produce.

BMW recently announced a plan to spend about 56 million dollars to expand its factory in Dingolfing, Germany, to produce advanced fifth-generation battery packs, and is investing in a battery supply system that could produce new cells from recycled old BMW battery packs.

The company was one of the pioneers in the design of electric cars, but it has begun to fall behind not only with Tesla, but also with other car manufacturers such as GM and Nissan, or other European rivals such as Volkswagen. The new announcement that rationalizes its internal combustion offerings and expands electricity, may be just what the company needs to put it back in the lead.

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