The BMW Group is forging ahead with electromobility and deepening its existing business relationships with battery cell manufacturers CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited) and Samsung SDI.

The original CATL order volume of four billion euros announced in mid-2018 will now be increased to 7.3 billion euros (contract duration from 2020 to 2031), with 4.5 billion euros for the BMW Group and 2.8 billion euros for the Chinese production site of the BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. (BBA) joint venture in Shenyang. The BMW Group is the first customer of the CATL battery cell plant currently under construction in Erfurt, Germany.

The BMW Group has also signed a long-term supply contract for its fifth-generation electric drive trains with its second battery cell supplier, Samsung SDI. The contract, with value of 2.9 billion euros, extends from 2021 to 2031.

25 electrified models by 2023

By 2023, the BMW Group will have 25 electrified models in its line-up. The basis for this is created by flexible vehicle architectures for fully-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and models with combustion engines that enable the company to respond quickly to changing conditions. More than half of the 25 models will be fully electric. The BMW Group will double its sales of electrified vehicles between 2019 and 2021. In Europe, the company is also following an ambitious growth logic: The aim is to increase the percentage of electrified vehicles in the new vehicle fleet to a quarter in 2021 and to a third in 2025; by 2030, they should account for half of sales volumes.

By the end of 2019, the company aims to have more than half a million vehicles with fully-electric or plug-in hybrid drive trains on the roads. Within two years, the BMW Group will offer five fully-electric series-production vehicles: Alongside the BMW i3, with more than 160,000 units built to date, this year will see the start of production of the fully-electric MINI at Plant Oxford. This will be followed in 2020 by the fully-electric BMW iX3 from Shenyang (China) and, in 2021, by the BMW iNEXT, which will be produced in Dingolfing and the BMW i4 from Plant Munich.