BMW will sign contracts with suppliers for the first vehicles on the platform by the end of the year. Contracts will be awarded “taking into account CO2 emissions and the percentage of secondary [recycled] material as criteria for selecting suppliers,” Zipse said.
The plant in Hungary will be operated “entirely without fossil fuels,” Zipse said. Power will be generated either on site or bought from suppliers offering renewable energy.
Two design prototypes for the first models based on the platform have already shown to board members, Zipse said. “We can promise you that you will also be fascinated by them. The Neue Klasse represents precisely the quantum leap we are aiming for,” he said.
Zipse said BMW will have eight all-electric models on the road this year. “If we include pre-production vehicles, we are already building 15 BEVs,” he told shareholders.
The automaker expects 10 percent of its deliveries this year to be BEVs. “In the first three months, our BEV sales more than doubled compared to the prior-year quarter,” Zipse said.
He said the company is aiming for a cumulative two million sales of all-electric cars by 2025.
“By 2030, at least half our global sales should come from all-electric vehicles. We are naturally doing everything we can to meet this goal earlier,” Zipse said.
Zipse added that BMW Group’s Mini and Rolls-Royce brands will be all-electric from the early 2030s.