BMW CEO declares its EVs will soon be the ‘benchmark’ in charging, range, and pricing
After previewing some of the technology on its “Neue Klasse” EV platform at CES last week, BMW’s CEO Oliver Zipse is not mixing words when speaking about the German automaker’s future in the EV market. Zipse was as bold to say that BMW’s next wave of EVs will be the industry benchmark in range, charging speeds, and pricing. Forgive us if you’ve heard this one before.
It’s been over three years since BMW introduced its first full wave of EVs and ten years since the debut of its first all-electric model, the eminent (for better or worse) i3 hatchback. Following early adoption of that ultra-compact vehicle, the German automaker’s quest to go all-electric truly began with the iX3 SUV – the first of 13 EV expected to arrive by this year.
At the time, BMW was making some bold claims about the iX3 and its overall EV technology, providing more range, power, and cargo space than a majority of the other competitors on the road at the time.
As we’re sure you’re quite aware, many of those competitors have debuted benchmark technology of their own, and although BMW has continued to roll out more and more EV models like the i4 sedan and kidney bean-heavy iX, it has not yet dominated the market as planned.
Amongst German EV automakers alone, BMW’s EV sales were middle of the pack in 2022 when compared to VW Group (including Audi) and Mercedes-Benz. Nothing to scoff at, but room for improvement nonetheless.
Where BMW believes it has improved is in the EV platform technology its next wave of all-electric models will sit atop, which recently made its debut at CES inside the i Vision Dee concept seen below.
BMW’s Neue Klasse EV platform sounds promising on paper
While this first taste of BMW’s Neue Klasse (“new class”) architecture exists within a concept EV that will more than likely never see an assembly line, the capabilities it represents are ample enough to leave BMW’s CEO Oliver Zipse feeling rather emboldened. He shared the following sentiment with journalists in Las Vegas following the reveal of the i Vision Dee concept:
We will be the benchmark in terms of range, charging speed and pricing. Don’t forget pricing.
Love the confidence, but as they say, “show, don’t tell.”
A key factor in the success of this new BMW architecture will be its battery technology, an area of the EV industry the German automaker has invested heavily in, in recent years. BMW has already shared that the new platform will include new cylindrical cells that are expected to improve energy density, charging speeds, and overall range by 20-30% percent compared to its current battery tech.
This technology itself appears to be much of the reasoning behind Zipse’s “benchmark” comments, but the BMW CEO has promised other EV battery projects in the works as well. For instance, we reported in December that BMW had committed $20 million to long-time partner Solid Power to license its solid-state battery technology and implement assembly lines at its own production facilities.
Solid Power’s energy dense cells have not reached scalability or cost parity with lithium-ion cells, but BMW intends to continue development overseas alongside the Colorado-based battery developer to help reach that sought after epoch for EV battery breakthroughs.
If successful, BMW might be able to deliver on Zipse’s promising of setting the standard in key EV specifications for consumers. However, there are plenty of other competitors also invested in Solid Power and other solid-state battery developers looking to do it first – or at the very least, do it better.
The first BMW EV on the Neue Klasse platform is expected to arrive sometime in 2025 and will be a midsize sedan built in Hungary. You can watch the introduction of the i Vision Dee concept and get a preview of BMW’s upcoming EV tech in the video below:
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EV sales kept up their momentum in December 2024, with incentives playing a big role, according to the latest Cox Automotive’s Kelley Blue Book report.
December’s strong EV sales saw an average transaction price (ATP) of $55,544, which helped push the industry-wide ATP higher, according to Kelley Blue Book. The December ATP for an EV was higher year-over-year by 0.8%, slightly below the industry average, and higher month-over-month by 1.1%. Tesla ATPs were higher year-over-year by 10.5%.
Incentives for EVs remained elevated in December, although they were slightly lower month-over-month at 14.3% of ATP, down from 14.7% in November.
EV incentives were higher by an impressive 41% year-over-year and have been above 12% of ATP for six consecutive months. Strong sales incentives, which averaged more than $6,700 per sale in 2024, were one reason EV sales surpassed 1.3 million units last year, according to Cox Automotive, a new record for volume and share.
(My colleague Jameson Dow reported yesterday, “In 2024, the world sold 3.5 million more EVs than it did in the previous year … This increase is larger than the 3.2 million increase in EV sales from the previous year – meaning that EV sales aren’t just up, but that the rate of growth is itself increasing.”)
Kelley Blue Book estimated that in December, approximately 84,000 vehicles – or 5.6% of total sales – transacted at prices higher than $80,000 – the highest volume ever. KBB lumps gas cars and EVs together into this luxury vehicle category, so this is where Tesla Cybertruck is slotted.
However, Tesla bundles sales figures of Cybertruck with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi(!) into a category it calls “other models,” so we don’t know for sure exactly how many Cybertrucks Tesla sold in Q4, much less in December. However, Electrek‘s Fred Lambert estimates between 9,000 and 12,000 Cybertrucks were sold in Q4, and that’s not a stellar sales figure.
What will January bring when it comes to EV ATPs? What about tax credits? Check back in a month and I’ll fill you in.
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Tesla is now claiming that Cybertruck was the ‘best-selling electric pickup in US’ last year despite not even reporting the number of deliveries.
There’s a lot of context needed here.
As we often highlighted, Tesla is sadly one of, if not the most, opaque automakers regarding sales reports.
Tesla doesn’t break down sales per model or even region.
For comparison, here’s Ford’s Q4 2024 sales report compared to Tesla’s:
You could argue that Tesla has fewer models than Ford, and that’s true, but Tesla’s report literally has two lines despite having six different models.
There’s no reason not to offer a complete breakdown like all other automakers other than trying to make it hard to verify the health of each vehicle program.
This has been the case with the Cybertruck. Tesla is bundling its Cybertruck deliveries with Model S, Model X, and Tesla Semi deliveries.
Despite this lack of disclosure, Tesla has been able to claim that the Cybertruck has become “the best-selling electric pickup truck” in the US in 2024:
It very well might be true. Ford disclosed 33,510 F-150 Lightning truck deliveries in the US in 2024 while most estimates are putting Cybertruck deliveries at around 40,000 units.
Those are global deliveries, but Tesla only delivered the Cybertruck in the US, Canada, and Mexico in 2024, and most of the deliveries are believed to be in the US.
However, there’s essential context needed here, as we highlighted in our recent ‘Tesla Cybertruck sales are disastrous‘ article.
First off, Tesla had a backlog of over 1 million reservations for the Cybertruck that it has been building since 2019. This led many to believe Tesla already had years of demand baked in for the truck and that production would be the constraint.
However, based on estimates, again, because Tesla refuses to disclose the data, Cybertruck deliveries were either flat or down in Q4 versus Q3 despite Tesla introducing cheaper versions of the vehicle and ramping up production.
Again, that’s after just about 40,000 deliveries.
Furthermore, with almost 11,000 deliveries in Q4 in the US, Ford more likely than not outsold Cybertruck with the F-150 Lightning in Q4.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is in damage control here. There’s no doubt that it is having issues selling the Cybertruck.
Inventory is full of Cybertrucks and Tesla is now discounting them and offering free lifetime Supercharging.
Tesla is great at ramping up production, and it’s clear the Cybertruck is not production-constrained anymore. It is demand-constrained despite having over 1 million reservations.
Again, those reservations were made before Tesla unveiled the production version, which happened to have less range and cost significantly more.
The upcoming cheaper single motor version should help with demand, but I have serious doubts Tesla can ramp this program up to more than 100,000 units in the US.
As a reminder, Tesla installed a production capacity of 250,000 units annually and Musk said he could see Tesla selling 500,000 Cybertrucks per year.
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