BMW does not count itself among the carmakers that are going ‘all-electric’ in the next decade. In fact its R&D chief Klaus Froehlich has stated that the German carmaker plans to continue offering petrol engines for at least the next 30 years, according to Automotive News.
But with no inclination to get left behind, BMW is also embarking on a huge electrification drive, which will see at least 13 all-electric models gracing its line-up by the end of this decade.
This will, however, lead to some casualties on the internal combustion front. Last year Klaus Froehlich admitted that the company would be discontinuing some of its petrol and diesel engines due to the cost of developing EVs, and now BMW’s Chairman of the Board of Management, Oliver Zipse, has put a timeline on this.
At the company’s Annual General Meeting this week, Zipse said that it would be cutting its internal combustion range by 50 percent in the next four years.
“We are reducing complexity, with fewer variants and fewer drive trains – keeping only those for which there is real demand,” Zipse said. “About half the current drive train variants will no longer be offered by 2025.
“We are qualifying our team for the transition to e-mobility, developing expertise and reallocating competences. That is what transformation looks like at BMW.”
The Chairman did not elaborate on which diesel and petrol engines faced the chop but based on the previous statements by R&D chief Froehlich, we do have an idea of what’s first in line.
According to Automotive News, the 3,0-litre quad-turbo diesel unit that’s fitted to BMW’s M50d variants is on the way out because it’s too expensive to produce. The 1,5-litre turbodiesel unit also faces the axe, and so does BMW’s 6,6-litre V12 turbopetrol that’s fitted to the M760Li xDrive.
Froehlich said the V12 would be discontinued because current volumes are very low, and that in time it would become tricky to justify investing in the V8.
Clearly the writing is on the wall for everything with more than six-cylinders in BMW’s current line-up. We’ll fill you in with more details as they become available.
