BMW betting big on battery electric M cars, hopes BEVs to outsell ICEs in 2028

BMW M GmbH, the German luxury car marquee's high-performance division, is betting big on electrification. BMW already has two M-badged EVs on sale: the i4 M50 and iX M60. Two more EVs are slated to join the lineup this year in the form of the i7 M70 and i5 M60. With the fast-growing lineup of M-badged EVs, BMW expects the electric M cars to outsell their ICE counterparts in 2028, reports Bimmer Today. Also, BMW reportedly believes that electrified M cars, including battery electric vehicles (BEV) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHEV), will overtake the sales of ICE models as early as 2027.

The report states that BMW M boss Frank van Meel made this announcement on the sidelines of a presentation of the M2 and XM. The automaker reportedly showed a graphic revealing how the OEM expects electrified car sales to evolve up to 2030. The automaker projects the sales of all-electric and plug-in hybrid BMW M models to be under 20 per cent in 2023, while they would experience a rapid surge in sales over the next five years, overtaking the sales of internal combustion engine-powered cars in 2027, when the latter will dip below 50 per cent mark.

BMW M also expects the BEVs to continue to grow at a significantly faster rate compared to PHEVs in 2028 when they would account for more than 50 per cent of total sales compared to less than one-third of sales for ICEs. It also forecasts that the proportion of pure combustion engine-powered BMW M cars will be only around 10 per cent in 2030.

However, one point to note is that the current M-badged electric cars are not full-blown BMW M models. But, one such model is expected to launch in the coming years that will perform like a full-blown BMW M car and will draw energy from a pure electric powertrain. The German automaker is already testing a prototype based on a widebody i4 M50 that gets a quad-motor AWD powertrain with one electric motor powering each wheel. This EV will come as the BMW M flagship and could come promising a whopping 1,341 hp of peak power.

BMW M is also expected to bring all-electric iterations of its bread-and-butter models, like the M3 and M4. This would be based on the much-hyped Neue Klasse platform. Furthermore, the BMW M2 successor is expected to go fully electric sometime in 2030.