Today, August 16, Oliver Zipse will officially take over the chairmanship of the BMW AG Executive Board. He succeeds Harald Krüger, who took over the company on May 13, 2015. Zipse takes over the BMW Group as the world’s most successful supplier of premium automobiles, but sales of the core brand BMW fell behind Mercedes compared to the time of the takeover by Harald Krüger.
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Despite falling behind Mercedes, Krüger was responsible for a significant increase in sales. In its first year as head of BMW, the BMW Group sold 2,247,485 vehicles worldwide, representing a new record sales volume. 2016, 2017 and 2018 were followed by further sales records.
Last year, the company sold 2,490,664 BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles.
Despite numerous uncertainties and crises around the world, the BMW Group is on course for another record year in 2019. After seven months, sales are 0.9 percent above the previous year’s record. Therefore, for the first time the BMW Group could surpass 2.5 million premium cars sold annually.
Many experts have questioned the strategic decisions under Harald Krüger, especially when it came to electro-mobility. Once a leader in the segment innovation, BMW has fallen behind other automakers when it comes to electrified vehicles.
However, the course has already been set, which will bear fruit in the coming months: with the MINI Cooper SE, BMW iX3, BMW i4 and BMW iNext, four new electric cars will be launched on the market within the next two years.
The company is even expanding its plug-in hybrids offerings.
Harald Krüger also continued the strategy of expanding a platform for vehicles with front-wheel drive. The UKL architecture, which was initially developed for MINI, is now also being used in further developed variants by the BMW 2 Series Active Tourer and the Gran Tourer, X1, X2 and the 1 Series.
Above all, the change in the BMW 1 Series is critically viewed by many fans of the rear-wheel drive, but could turn out to be a strategically correct decision.
Once again, the significance of the X models has grown significantly: While the SUV family accounted for around 32 percent of BMW sales in 2016, this year’s figure is almost 46 percent. A relevant factor not only for sales but above all for margins is the recent introduction of the BMW X7.
However, it is clear that Oliver Zipse is taking over the BMW Group at a difficult phase. Despite all the uncertainties – from the trade dispute between the US and China to Brexit and the uncertain situation in the Middle East – the expectations of him are high.
Critics will judge him by whether he can further increase the worldwide sales and whether BMW can pass in Mercedes in the premium segment.
At the same time, other critics will demand that BMW expand its electric activities even faster than announced. Yet, we might not see a new strategy in place for quite some time.
[Source: Bimmertoday]
1st day of work?! Happy 30th anniversary, Ollie! He’s been with the company since ’91. He was 12 @ the time.
Age 12 at a car company doing what??? He must have been supporting his family I presume.
Mining Cobalt.
Ignore the electric car, just focus on making great petrol and diesel cars.
Ignoring electric car=bankruptcy. Why BMW have co-prouctions in India, China, million$ of BEV mandated.
No, doing electric car = lose tons of money. All electric car ventures have failed to make money, so why still continue to burn money making this electric car? Better wait 20 years until someone found a cheaper battery material.
BMW have paid billion$ for a battery factory, so they better make money.
They abandoned the world’s leading CF chassis factory too.
Not abandoned, divested, built it & then sold their 49% share to their partner SGL, who they still have a working relationship with. It’s because CFRP are not volume or mass production that there is no leading chassis factory, only expensive niche hypercars, F1 or trim (which BMW still use).
But BMW was building more CF chassis than anyone else. They were in the lead for mass production techniques, not just hand laid ones like Konigsegg.
But mass production didn’t work economically so they bailed.
Like Tesla doing a volume BEV.
But BMW is still making them and selling more i3 than ever. I do not know about i8 sales, but I do not see much inventory at my dealer whereas before they seemed to sell 4 or 5 a month.
More i3 than ever is anything≥150k.
I just need for Mr. Zipse to make brilliant EVs from the ground up with the CLAR architecture. Not just mind-blowing EVs with cool, cutting edge tech and sufficient amounts of range, but great drivers cars with world class chassis, performance, and steering. Supercars/Sports cars and more dynamic-than-ever sport saloons. Make even more cooler powertrains such as V8s, V10s, etc. It’s possible. Badass performance cars of all sorts, luxury cars, and cutting edge EVs and innovation. Keep the manuals alive as well!
I do not think they’ll fail on delivering what you have stated, their only issue would be matching or exceeding what Tesla’s battery tech currently has. Efficiency is what most manufacturers fail at, they literally fail it’s no joke. I hope BMW does deliver that 600km+ range on speedy charges of at least 150kW but I’d prefer 250kW instead. Quality they won’t disappoint unless if they come with that boring usual 1980s/90s current interior design.
So why is no other manufacturer using Tesla patents? Why did Toyota & Daimler sell their Tesla shares? Don’t recall 1980s/90s iDrive.
😅😁 the only difference is iDrive which came into existence between 1999 and 2001 I think. But for real interior design is boring and hasn’t changed for a long long time. I’m not faulting their quality but design, it’s not exciting it’s just expected.
As for Tesla I remember they even allowed legacy manufacturers to use their charging stations but they had to help pay for the growth of the infrastructure, as you can see they all refused.
As for Tesla patents let me quote and link up. “…if a company wants to use Tesla’s patents for free, they cannot sue Tesla for infringement of their own patents, which has some interesting implications since a legal action is the main, if not only mean to enforce intellectual property rights.
That means that Tesla could safely use the patents of a company using its own patents, even if said company didn’t “open-source” them since they couldn’t sue Tesla for infringement based on their agreement to use Tesla’s patents in “good faith”. https://electrek.co/2015/11/10/a-number-of-companies-are-now-using-teslas-open-source-patents-and-it-has-some-interesting-implications/
Well, all the things you mentioned where decided almost before Krüger got in the first spot. EVs will be better than Tesla anyway, not so difficult actually. Zipse cannot change so much anyway as architecture is already pretty fixed.. I don’t know what people think how development in automotive industry works. But you cannot just change or create a new architecture and a long term plan in 3-5 years or so…you can make new derivatives based on an existing but radically changes aren’t that easy. The good thing is, BMW is capable of doing an amazing job with making BEV, PHEV and ICE cars
Hear me out, I’m not saying that money should be on for a new platform, but they ought to make some class leading EVs.
I’m exicited how BMW can make brilliant EVs with a Multi platform. The EVs will just be a compromise.