German luxury brand BMW announced its full-year 2023 results on Thursday, highlighting a 6.4% increase in global shipments to 2.554 million vehicles. BMW's global sales rose by 9% to his 155.5 billion euros, and his EBIT margin for cars rose to his 9.8%. Furthermore, BMW announced that global EV sales increased by 74.2% to 375,000 units.
BMW's success in the EV space amid weak demand may be a result of the company's two-pronged EV strategy, Frank Weber, the company's global chief technology officer and board member, told Yahoo!・Told Finance.
BMW has released vehicles in both traditional gasoline and EV form (the new 7 Series, for example), and both vehicles look the same. Most EVs from other automakers are very different from their gas-powered counterparts, and each company offers fundamentally different product lines.
“When I visit dealers, I ask, 'Is it an advantage or a disadvantage that we offer the same car in all different specifications?' [gas-powered and electric] Power train? ' he said.
“And for us, it was very important to find the right solution for each individual, and I think what helped… [is] that our structure is very clear; [in] We say a 7 Series is a 7 Series and a 5 Series is a 5 Series,” Weber said.
Weber said the structure helps customers choose the car that best suits their needs. He believes there is a need for BEVs (battery electric vehicles), but many European customers end up buying diesel cars because they need more range or because they can't be recharged. I gave an example.
Diversity in powertrain options is likely to support early BEV success in 2024. BMW reported that BEV sales surged by a “significant double-digit percentage” in the first two months of this year compared to the same period last year. Growth has been disproportionately strong in the US, with the company's BEV sales nearly doubling by the end of February compared to last year. BMW said sales of BEV models in Europe and China also recorded “significant double-digit growth.”
Weber also touted the company's success with plug-in hybrids, another powertrain option available to customers. Weber said BMW is number one in plug-in hybrid sales in the premium segment, selling around 1.1 million units worldwide. Separately, the BMW X5 xDrive50e plug-in hybrid SUV was named the top choice of US Consumers in his report.
BMW's vision for the future of electric SUVs
BMW also offered a glimpse into the future of SUV electrification on Thursday with the BMW Vision Neue Klasse X. The concept, which closely resembles the actual model that goes on sale late next year, is based on BMW's bespoke EV platform. It will be called Neue Klasse and will be separated from its current dual-platform strategy.
Although this new class of EVs is on a separate platform, technology products such as infotainment and electronics will continue to be shared between EVs and gasoline-powered vehicles to keep costs down and maintain product consistency. Weber acknowledged that this is easier to achieve for a brand like BMW, where mass-market sales numbers are not an issue.
Despite the cooling of EV sales across the market, Weber is one of those who still believes the transition to EVs is real, but it will take time for it to become mainstream. .
“If you look back over the last three years, we haven't had this kind of natural growth rate. [EV] So what's going to happen is not that we're going to abandon this technology or that consumers are going to say it's not going to happen, it's just that we're on a more natural growth trajectory year over year, which is That's very healthy. “Said.
Pras Subramanian is a reporter for Yahoo Finance.you can follow him twitter And even more Instagram.
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