BMW’s flexibility now the industry standard to survive EV reality

Just ahead of his elevation to the position of CEO at BMW in 2019, then production head Oliver Zipse spoke at an event at the Mini plant in Oxford about the need for caution when it came to EVs.

“Flexibility is key,” he told journalists. “If we predict the success of 3 Series, we can be pretty much spot-on. To predict electro-mobility is much more difficult.”

Five years later BMW is reaping the rewards of its more circumspect strategy. In July the company actually sold more electric cars in Europe than the global EV leader Tesla, according to market research firm Jato Dynamics. 

But BMW’s electric cars are even today still just adapted versions of combustion engine models, built on the same production line.