BMW attained remarkable EV sales during the first quarter of 2022, which also prompted the sales executive of the US region to believe that the reign of Tesla is now over as BMW is catching up expeditiously.
BMW has been engaged in the R&D of EVs for a very long time, and the company also has an ambitious target that is to sell half of its new vehicles in BEVs by 2030. Why is BMW particularly unpleased with Tesla?
The reason is simple: BMW’s initial target customers have overlapped with that of Tesla after Model 3 launched, and the former saw a reduction in sales for several of its bestsellers. Now, it’s time for BMW to strike back.
As pointed out by BMW Sales Director Pieter Nota, Tesla has been utilizing its exclusive selling point for a while now, but that reign is now over. According to Nota, EVs are becoming mainstream and are no longer restricted to a niche market, which is not in Tesla’s favor.
The confidence of BMW comes from its order quantity as there is a long queue for the two BEV i4 and iX of the company. The capacity of its factories is also unable to keep up with the sales demand, where the delivery of vehicles has now extended to 6 months.
BMW will continue to thrive in the second half of 2022 with the arrival of yet another three BEVs that include the flagship large-sized sedan i7, medium-sized sedan i5, and the BEV MINI Countryman. BMW CEO Oliver Zipse commented that the company will have to ramp up its capacity to the maximum level because demand has been constantly rising. Zipse also believes that the market demand for EVs is now exceedingly large as seen from the case of i4 and iX, and that the focus right now is to produce additional units instead of focusing on the sales method.
The statement of BMW might be overturned by the company’s sales figures.
Tesla terminated BMW’s title of sales champion in the North American luxury car market in 2021. Cox Automotive estimates that Tesla had sold 352K units in the particular market, while BMW, regardless of energy category, had sold 336K units in comparison. It is also worth noting that Lexus sold 304K units, while Benz had sold 276K units, at the same time.
BMW had performed quite well for the first two months of 2022 with a total of 54,210 units (regardless of energy category) sold throughout the entire US, while Tesla had sold 71,250 units of BEVs during the same period.
In terms of sales projection for this year, BMW is optimistic towards its global EV sales target of 200K units. Tesla had sold 930K units in 2021, and is likely to achieve one million this year.
The competition between these two automotive manufacturers is ferocious indeed, and it is hard to say whether Tesla’s reign in the EV market would come to an end in the short term, though the market should be seeing more diversified and healthier competitions after 3-5 years, instead of a monopolistic structure.
(Cover photo source: BMW)