NMW’s electric future at odds with their philosophy
A senior BMW product developer says that the entire range of vehicles from the German car maker will have to turn towards partial or full electrification in the future so as to meet Europe’s increasingly stringent emissions regulations.
The brand has to sell a whole range of plug-in hybrid, hybrid and pure electric drive cars, regardless of what consumers are looking for because of the new European regulations which require fleet average CO2 emissions of 95g/km by 2020.
The European automotive industry is amongst the most heavily regulated, so the companies have to react not only to customer wishes but also to present and future regulations.
The European Union is somewhere between five to seven years ahead of the rest of the world in regards to regulating vehicle emissions and as a result of this, electrification will be central to BMW’s strategy, whether this results in a plug-in hybrid, hybrid or full electrification.
According to Herbert Diess – BMW board member for development – said that they are starting to meet with a physical limit and it will be difficult in the following twenty years to reach a 99g/km average, let alone 50g/km in the future.
He also acknowledged that there is quite a ‘challenge’ to strike a balance between BMW’s traditional goal of creating the ‘ultimate driving machine’ on the one part and the need to develop an efficient one on the other. He did point towards the i8 as an example of such a balance.
The motivation behind BMW’s has always been driving pleasure and the i8 has shown that it’s possible to go even below 50g/km, but there will also exist other standard models with entry-level electrification.
One can easily understand how much more significantly stricter the regulation in Europe will be by 2020 when compared to China’s – where the target will be 119g/km, Japan – where it will be 117g/km or the USA where the target is 102g/km by 2025.
