Electric cars will end sooner than 2024
Discontinued model BMW i3. (Photo: BMW)
Instead of 2024, the end of production for the BMW i3 should come in 2022 or 2023. The gap left by the i3 built since 2013 could then be filled by the planned compact SUV BMW iX1.
At the end of 2019, BMW boss Oliver Zipse had contradicted media reports about an imminent end for the BMW i3. The i3 will continue to be built at the Leipzig location until 2024, according to industry circles at the time. BMW did not want to be set on a specific date for the end of production. As long as there is demand, the i3 will still be produced. Now the wind seems to have turned again. Strong competition, including from within the company, now seems to end the BMW i3 earlier.
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The end of the BMW i3 in the USA in July
To Information from the automobile week (Paywall) BMW could take the i3, which has been in production since 2013, out of its range as early as 2022. The industry journal writes that it will end by 2023 at the latest. In the USA, the i3 could turn off come in the next few weeks. According to a BMW letter to dealers, the last 180 i3s will be produced in July. Subsequently, the sale of the BMW i3 is to be discontinued. The same threatens in Germany.
According to Automobilwoche, BMW had sold almost 40,000 i3s in 2019 – a record for the then six-year-old electric car. A year later, sales had dropped to 28,000. The funding of the federal government was no longer able to compensate for the onset of the corona-related weak first half of the year. In the first half of this year, around 13,000 BMW i3s were produced in the Leipzig plant – 120 per day. Meanwhile, the lack of chips in the automotive industry is also causing problems for BMW. Production stopped for a week in June.
BMW iX1 as a potential i3 successor
In addition to competition from current models such as the VW ID3, new electric vehicles from BMW such as the i4, which is due to launch in November, promise significantly more range than the i3. The gap left by the i3 is more likely to be closed by the compact SUV BMW iX1. Its production is scheduled to start in Regensburg in 2022. The iX1 will also have more range and more modern technology. The Mini Countryman is to be built in Leipzig from 2023, of which there will also be a fully electric version, as the Automobilwoche writes.
