At the Geneva Auto Show today, BMW finally confirmed its next electric ‘BMW i’ vehicle to come after the ‘BMW i3’.
The company will build a production version of its iVision Dynamics concept called ‘BMW i4’.
As we have often discussed in the past, BMW has significantly slowed down its fully electric vehicle effort after the released of the i3 in 2013 – leaving a 5 or 6 years gap between all-electric vehicle releases.
The German automaker has yet to bring a new all-electric vehicle to market or meaningfully update the i3, but the next all-electric vehicle of the group is supposed to be an electric Mini to be released next year followed by an electric version of the BMW X3 and finally the iNext vehicle in 2021, which BMW has presented as a Tesla Model 3 competitor.
Now they are throwing the ‘BMW i4’ into the mix.
They are basing the new vehicle on the BMW iVision Dynamics concept unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show last year.
At the Geneva Auto Show today, BMW CEO Harald Krüger announced:
“By 2025, our global vehicle portfolio will include 25 fully- or part-electric models. At last year’s Frankfurt Motor Show, we unveiled our take on the future of e‑mobility with the BMW iVision Dynamics. This vehicle will become reality: we will build it in Munich – as the BMW i4,”
When unveiling the concept last year, BMW claimed a series of specs like a 600 km range (373 miles, but they were likely referencing NEDC numbers, which means that’s a lot closer to ~300 miles EPA), top speed of over 124mph (200km/h) and 0-62mph (0-100km/h) in four seconds.
Electrek’s Take
While they didn’t offer a specific timeline for the release of the vehicle aside from BMW’s broader 2025 electric vehicle plans, it’s nice to see a concept vehicle not being just a concept and actually leading to a production car, which is not often the case.
The Geneva Auto Show this year is full of electric and autonomous vehicle concepts and it would be refreshing to see more of them leading to production cars like the BMW iVision Dynamics.
I’d venture to say that the CUV version of the Porsche Mission E is likely to make it to production so it might be a good year for electric concepts.
We are going to report on a few more electric car unveilings today so stay tuned.
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