BMW CEO Oliver Zipse has come out to criticise the Tesla brand’s quality and reliability issues with regards to its products. He confirms that because of these product flaws, the German manufacturer will be set apart from the current global electric car leader.
As Bloomberg reports, this is the second time that the BMW CEO has criticised the North American manufacturer. Zipse said that he had his doubts about Tesla’s success in the European market when faced against more established brands but the Model 3 landed up being the best in its segment in terms of sales in September this year.
“Where we differ is our standard on quality and reliability,” Zipse said a Handelsblatt conference. “We have different aspirations on customer satisfaction.”
In the last few weeks, BMW has globally launched two battery-powered models. These being the i4 sedan and iX SUV. With this, it confirms that sales of plug-in hybrid and purely electric models nearly doubled to over 230 000 units in the first nine months of the year. This is still a small figure compared to Tesla, which shipped 241 300 cars during the third quarter alone.
“Tesla isn’t quite part of the premium segment. They’re growing very strongly via price reductions. We wouldn’t do that since you’ve got to last the distance.”
