Dubai, United Arab Emirates (CNN) – BMW revealed the i4, the latest addition to its line of electric vehicles, on Wednesday.
And while the luxury car maker plans to add more electric cars to its lineup, it has made clear that it will continue to build cars that run on fuel engines for the foreseeable future.
BMW Chairman Oliver Zibs said in an online press conference that the company would continue to develop, build and sell cars with internal combustion engines, including plug-in hybrid cars, adding: “If there are no customers for these vehicles in our 140 markets. We will stop producing them. “
The direction of BMW is very different from its auto peers. Although it has not formally adhered to it, General Motors said it plans to sell only zero-emissions cars by 2035. Volvo recently announced that it will become a brand of fully electric cars by 2035. The year 2030, however, BMW has not set any timeline on when or if it will become a fully electric car company.
But at some point, it may have few options, as some countries have said they are planning to ban sales of internal combustion cars in the not-too-distant future, while Britain and the US state of California have proposed a ban on sales of internal combustion cars, including That’s hybrid cars, by 2035. Norway wants all passenger cars and pickups available in the country to be zero-emissions by 2025.
BMW’s strategy has always been to maintain flexibility in its engineering while developing new cars, so that its factories can quickly and easily switch from producing pure internal combustion cars to producing hybrid or electric cars as market demand changes. The engineering infrastructures of BMW cars are designed to be easy to manufacture using electric power, hybrid or purely internal combustion.
BMW has released few details about its new i4 electric sedan. The car appears with 4 doors and is similar in appearance to the BMW 4 Series, which is powered by petroleum fuel. It will be available in versions with a driving range of about 480 km, with a power of about 530 hp.
BMW says it will offer electric models in 90% of its market segments by 2023. By 2030, the company expects nearly half of its global sales to be electric vehicles.
However, there is at least one brand in the BMW Group that will be fully electric, as the company announced that the “MINI” division of BMW will provide electric cars only by the middle of the year 2030.
