Electric cars are coming, like it or not. Some companies are trying to get ahead of the curve, like BMW, which has high aspirations for electric sales volume in the coming year. Longer range, more sales. That's a very simplified version of what BMW is hoping from its plug-in vehicle line up. In fact, Bimmer is expecting to sell as many electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in 2017 as it has for the past three years combined.
BMW will sell about 60,000 plug-in vehicles this year, and is hoping to boost that annual total to 100,000 units for 2017. The key to this lofty goal is the i3 electric vehicle, which moved 25,000 units last year. BMW this summer said its battery upgrade for the 2017 i3 will boost that model's single-charge range to 114 miles, up from 81 miles for this year's version. The model's US base price will get an increase as well: up $1,200, to $44,595. Beyond the i3, BMW is said to be developing its Project i20 initiative, which includes more autonomous-driving capability as well as greater use of lightweight carbon fiber in the automaker's plug-ins. Moreover, BMW is likely to update its i3 and i8 plug-in hybrid models by 2022, and has said that it'd like as much as 25 percent of its global sales to be of the plug-in variety by 2025.
Notably, BMW debuted a compact luxury plug-in hybrid SUV in September called the X1, though it's only for China. That model can go as far as 37 miles on electricity alone while boasting a 0-62 mile per hour acceleration time of 7.4 seconds. Through October, BMW's plug-in sales in the US have dropped 28 percent from a year earlier to about 7,500 units. The i3's domestic sales have fallen 30 percent, while i8 sales are down 14 percent in the US.
