With demand for electric vehicles (EVs) slowing, some legacy automakers have scaled back their all-electric plans. Not BMW. The German company saw its EVs constitute 15% of sales in 2023, up from 9% in 2022, and it actually turned a profit on the 376,000 battery-only vehicles it sold, unlike Ford and General Motors. BMW now ranks second in the luxury-EV segment behind Tesla, which saw sales slump in 2023.The company appears intent on keeping on the pressure, investing over $700 million to set up its first EV-only factory and unveiling new EV sedans and SUVs—dubbed the Neue Klasse—that offer longer charge times, autonomous-driving technology, and digital displays spanning the entire windshield width. With BMW topping Consumer Reports’ car brands list in 2024 for the second year in a row (Tesla was No. 18), Elon Musk is surely watching his back. “Newcomers,” BMW CEO Oliver Zipse told the New York Times in March, “if they’re not careful, they might get old before they grow up.”
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