BMW hits one million EV sales, targets two million fully electric sales by 2025

07 December 2021 - 11:35 By Reuters
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Handing over the BMW Group's one-millionth electrified vehicle at BMW Welt in Munich on December 6 2021.
Handing over the BMW Group's one-millionth electrified vehicle at BMW Welt in Munich on December 6 2021.
Image: BMW

BMW has sold its one millionth electric vehicle (EV) – including purely electric and hybrid vehicles – and plans to reach two million sales of purely electric vehicles by 2025, the German carmaker said on Tuesday.

Around 70% of EVs sold were hybrids, board member Pieter Nota said in a roundtable with journalists, adding the company believed hybrid models would continue to play an important role in particular for customers without easy access to chargers.

Continuing to modernise fossil fuel-burning cars was another important step towards making the industry more sustainable, he said: "Only then can we make a difference across the customer base."

BMW has long stood for investing in a range of technologies rather than focusing purely on battery-electric cars to reduce emissions, and opposes flat-out bans on purchasing combustion engine cars.

The carmaker aims for at least 50% of global sales to be fully electric by 2030, but has repeated on numerous occasions that lacking charging infrastructure was a major barrier to quicker consumer uptake of electric vehicles.

Sales in November were slightly below last year's levels, Nota said, as a lack of chips continued to restrict supply. However, the company remained confident that it would see absolute revenue growth compared to last year, he said.


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