The German luxury car manufacturer BMW has introduced an electric sports utility vehicle (SUV) to compete with the American Tesla. He plans to begin production in early 2022 in the United States. The head of the company, Oliver Zipse, also stated at a video conference that he wants electric cars to account for a third of BMW cars sold by 2025 and half of sales by 2030.
The new BMW iX is to have a range of 300 miles (480 kilometers). This is less than Tesla’s estimated range of the Model X Long Range, ie 371 million BMWs, but states that drivers will be able to recharge the car at a fast charging station for another 75 kilometers in ten minutes.
“We are setting new industry standards with BMW iX technologies. The iX has more computing power and data technology than the latest vehicles in our current model range, is compatible with the 5G network, gets new and improved autonomous driving and parking features and uses a high-performance fifth generation of our electric drive, “says Frank Weber, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for development.
Zipse also said he was considering the future of a mobile services company that his company had created with Daimler. Other partners could be added to it, but according to him, an alternative is to partially sell these activities. According to Reuters, the German newspaper Manager Magazin wrote last month that the provider of the alternative taxi service Uber offered one billion euros (26.5 billion crowns) for them.
BMW increased its pre-tax profit by 9.6 percent to 2.46 billion euros in the third quarter. It was helped by the resumption of Chinese demand for luxury cars.
– .