BMW to locally produce its electric vehicles in India soon

German luxury carmaker BMW has said that it is just a matter of time for the company to begin locally producing its electric vehicles in India. A senior company official told PTI that 9 per cent of the sales here came from electric vehicles in the first half of 2023, which he expects to reach up to 25 per cent by 2025. The company's vehicle have also been gaining traction in the country, he added.

BMW Group India President Vikram Pawah said in an interview that the localisation of EVs in India has two aspects - “one is the volume here, and the other one is the technology". He said that as volumes grow, the company will localise EVS. "There has to be some inertia of the volumes and stability. We're seeing good signs now. It's still early days...We have delivered only 500 cars across four models in the first six months, that is still small from that perspective, but it is clearly growing fast," Pawah said.

BMW currently sells four electric vehicle models in the country, namely, i7, iX, i4 and MINI SE. BMW iX is the best-selling battery electric vehicle from the brand in the Indian market. "We are the absolute leaders in the premium electric vehicles segment because we have over 50 per cent market share," Pawah added.

Speaking about the technology aspect, Pawah said that the company already uses generation five batteries. “We are not new to this technology. We have already progressed so far that we are already into generation five of this technology, and we are already working on generation six. So we'll make a decision about what is the right time, which one to localise at which time...It will be soon."

Going forward, the company also plans to bring in some of its global EV models to the Indian market.