BMW speeds up plans to electrify 25 new models, now due by 2023

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  The BMW Vision M Next (left) joins the Vision Next 100 (center) and the BMW iNext (right) on stage in Munich. [credit:
  BMW ]

In Munich on Tuesday, BMW revealed it is speeding up the plan to electrify its model range. Previously, it had committed to introducing 25 electric vehicles by the year 2025. Now, those EVs will reach us by 2023. Of those 25, BMW says more than half will be battery EVs, with the remainder being plug-in hybrid EVs (hopefully).

“By 2021, we will have doubled our sales of electrified vehicles compared with 2019,” said Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of management of BMW AG, in Munich on Tuesday. “We will offer 25 electrified vehicles already in 2023—two years earlier than originally planned. We expect to see a steep growth curve towards 2025: Sales of our electrified vehicles should increase by an average of 30 percent every year.”

The Bavarian car company has actually been rather proactive when it comes to electrification. It created the BMW i sub brand as a place to experiment with lightweight construction and electrification, which gave us the charming i3 city car and the i8 plug-in hybrid sports car. When it introduced the 530e plug-in hybrid, it bucked the trend of making PHEVs more expensive than their non-hybrid siblings, offering it at the exact same price as the plain-old 530i.