Group BMW bets on electric vehicles: it will electrify its ranges and announces the electric MINI 3-door

Electrification of its different product ranges is one of the main lines of work for Group BMW in the coming years. The German automotive group has just announced that all its brands and model series will be electrified with drivetrains and power units that are fully electric or plug-in hybrid, which will be offered in addition to the current combustion engine options.

Over the coming years, and with particular intensity from 2020, the German group will progressively launch new electrified versions across its various model series, since the new architecture on which the next generation of BMW vehicles will be built will allow the development of new fully electric vehicles on these foundations. Thus, just as the 2 Series Active Tourer and the 7 Series already offer plug-in hybrid variants, the rest of the series will also incorporate them, and thanks to the new flexible architecture being introduced across all the Group’s platforms, all its series will be able to offer new fully electric variants.

Among the models announced by Group BMW, the major novelty is the first fully electric MINI. It is a combination as logical as it is long awaited by the market, given the urban vocation of the model, especially since 2008, when it showed the MINI E, an electric model that never went into production. Now, however, it seems it will reach the market, as Group BMW has set the start of production of the electric model for 2019.

According to Group BMW’s forecasts, by 2025 registrations of electrified vehicles will account for between 15 and 25 percent of the total market, but everything will depend on how the different markets progress along the path of electrification, since developments in each will depend on factors such as regulation, incentives and the taxation structure of each.

Group BMW’s sales forecast for 2017 stood at 100,000 electrified units, a figure they expect to double. This will force manufacturers to adapt their production networks so they can react quickly to what is expected to be growing demand for this type of model. For this reason, manufacturers are giving their production lines the greatest possible flexibility, not only from a quantitative point of view but also a qualitative one. Thus, to respond quickly to customer demand, Group BMW is introducing into its production facilities structures that allow all types of models to be manufactured (petrol, diesel, plug-in hybrids, electric, …) at the same time.

Group BMW currently produces electrified models in ten plants around the world; since 2013, all the most significant components of the electric drivetrain for these vehicles have been produced in Dingolfing and Landshut. Dingolfing also builds the plug-in hybrid versions of the BMW 5 Series and BMW 7 Series and, from 2021, will also produce the BMW i NEXT, a fully electric vehicle. To date, and at its Dingolfing plant alone, the German manufacturer has invested more than 100 million euros in the development of electromobility.

Electric 3-door MINI, new member of the family

The electric MINI will be a version derived from the 3-door body variant of the model and will join MINI’s broad current range, which in future will offer, in addition to the usual petrol and diesel engine options, a plug-in hybrid variant and a fully electric one. For the latter, the power units will come from BMW’s plants in Dingolfing and Landshut, in Bavaria (Germany), where BMW is developing its Electric Mobility Centre, before being integrated into the model at its production plant in Oxford (England), where the main factory for the 3-door MINI is located.

The new fully electric MINI is just one of a wide range of electrified models to be launched progressively by the BMW and MINI brands in the coming years. In 2018, the new member of the BMWi family, the i8 Roadster, will reach the market, and BMW has already announced for 2020 the launch of the full-electric version of its X3. For BMW’s iNEXT, we will have to wait until 2021.

Currently Group BMW offers nine electrified models: from the fully electric BMW i3 to the most recent MINI Cooper SE Countryman ALL4, a plug-in hybrid version of the MINI Countryman produced by VDL Nedcar in the Netherlands. Group BMW’s initial forecasts for 2017 contemplated the sale of 100,000 electrified vehicles, a figure that is now estimated will reach around 200,000 electrified vehicles on the roads by the end of the year.

Technical specifications of this car

HatchbackMINI Mini33 versions · from 28,050 €