- Gasoline or electrical, future BMWs may have the identical look
- Upcoming Neue Klasse EVs set stage for design of gasoline fashions too
- BMW offered extra EVs in 2024 than Audi and Mercedes-Benz mixed
Throughout a media roundtable at CES 2025 in Las Vegas earlier this month, BMW’s chief improvement officer Frank Weber, who’s been tasked with main improvement of BMW’s forthcoming product portfolio, declared: “A BMW is a BMW and for us that is so basic.”
The chief was referring not simply to the automaker’s Neue Klasse EVs, which is able to launch later this 12 months, however to what is going to observe with gasoline tanks and tailpipes. What powers a automobile should not outline the design, in accordance with Weber.
“We are able to solely have one design,” Weber mentioned, adopted by “there isn’t a distinction between an ICE automotive and a battery electrical automotive.”
The difficulty with two designs stems from making one really feel newer and the opposite older or outdated, Weber defined. BMW received’t try to promote an electrical automotive as “extra fashionable” than its different automobiles both, he mentioned.
BMW Imaginative and prescient Neue Klasse X idea
Not like different automakers, BMW is within the means of embracing the identical important design language amongst each inner combustion engine automobiles (ICE) and battery-electric automobiles (BEV). Smaller variations akin to grille shapes or rear diffusers could be completely different, however the language and essence are the identical as seen with the present 5- and 7-Sequence lineups. The i4, i5, and i7 all seem like they match alongside their gas-powered siblings.
The chief famous that splitting EV design utterly from gas-powered automobiles is “in all probability one of many greatest errors a few of the rivals have been doing.” BMW’s upcoming Neue Klasse EVs, alternatively, will share their design with gasoline-fueled fashions, Weber confirmed.
If this can be a massive mistake by Weber’s description, BMW made it too. The automaker’s early EV, the i3, featured futuristic design that stood out from the remainder of the lineup. The identical could possibly be mentioned for its wild i8 plug-in hybrid sports activities automotive that got here alongside the i3. The iX crossover SUV has stood otherwise in design from different fashions for a number of years, although it would bridge the hole between at the moment’s gas-powered lineup and tomorrow’s Neue Klasse EVs.
2024 BMW i4 M50
Audi reported that in 2024 it offered over 164,000 EVs, whereas Mercedes-Benz mentioned it offered 185,100 EVs, and BMW mentioned it offered 426,594. Weber attributed BMW’s EV gross sales dominance over fellow German luxurious manufacturers Mercedes-Benz and Audi in 2024 because of its technique of all automobiles getting equal design therapy.
Mercedes and its lineup of EQE and EQS EVs shifted to a cab-forward design language that’s markedly completely different from each its E-Class and S-Class sedans and its GLE and GLS crossover SUVs. Notably, the brand new electrical G-Class seems like its gas-powered sibling other than its completely different wheels and grille.
Audi’s lineup of EVs, which incorporates two crossovers SUVs and a four-door sports activities sedan that’s a reskinned Porsche, doesn’t stand out just like the Mercedes EVs. These fashions mix into the automaker’s lineup when it comes to design.
What Weber confirmed received’t change on this methodical shift to EVs is BMW’s hierarchical lineup of number-based mannequin collection, which spans from a 1-Sequence (X1, for the U.S.) all the way in which to a 7-Sequence. “That is so valuable that you’ve a sure hierarchy that individuals know what to get,” he mentioned.
Based on Weber, sellers report folks aren’t strolling in understanding which actual powertrain they need. Clients are actually serious about it and asking themselves, “Am I prepared?” And if the reply is not any then the automaker’s capable of accommodate that.
“The extra relaxed we’re and the extra they really feel revered within the technique of the corporate, the simpler it’s to promote automobiles,” Weber famous.
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