BMW is boosting European EV output after starting i5 production at its Dingolfing plant.
BMW is seeing stronger demand for its electric vehicles in Europe than it expected, helping to offset a decline in orders in China, its biggest market, production chief Milan Nedeljkovic said.
“We expected at the start of the year that orders in Europe will decline, but it developed in the opposite way,” Nedeljkovic told reports on Friday during a tour of BMW’s plant in Dingolfing, Germany, where the carmaker started series production of the i5 full-electric sedan.
Europe posted an 11th consecutive month of growth in passenger car sales in June, led by a 55 percent surge in orders for EVs, which outpaced diesel sales for the first time in the European Union. In the same month, overall car sales declined in China as the country’s economic recovery stumbled.
Orders for new BMW cars are currently declining in China, as expected, Nedeljkovic said. But U.S. demand for its models is growing. In Europe, uptake of fully electric vehicles drove order growth, while demand for combustion-engine cars was flat, he added.
BMW wants electric cars to account for 15 percent of its deliveries this year and expects fully electric models to account for half of total sales well ahead of 2030.
The i5 is BMW brand’s third full-electric sedan after the flagship i7 and the i4. BMW also offers three full-electric SUVs with the iX1, iX3 and iX.