The internal combustion engine might be a thing of the past in the next decade to come. The world seems hellbent on adopting electric vehicles on a wide scale but there are still plenty of hurdles to overcome. In a recent interview with media representatives from Australia, at the BMW Welt in Munich, Dr Heinz Treseler, one of the people involved in developing the BMW X5 PHEV claimed the world isn’t ready for a massive adoption of EVs but rather plug-in hybrids for now.
“For many cases it [PHEV] is still the best solution. There are limits with pure electric drive at the moment,” Dr Treseler said.
The demand shows he’s right. While people are still rather reticent towards EVs, mainly because of range anxiety, plug-in hybrids are on the rise, precisely for that reason: virtually unlimited range. They do offer the best of both worlds: electric driving around town and conventional usage outside city limits. For now, then, the hybrid alternative seems to be more popular and it may be so for quite some time. Another issue could be the fact that there simply aren’t enough charging stations to go around.
Furthermore, according to BMW Australia Corporate Communications General Manager Leanne Blanckenberg there simply aren’t enough incentives offered right now to make the case for EVs and a wider adoption by the customers:
“Until the infrastructure and the incentives are there to push the customers to buy that technology [EV] we need to have something else to offer,” Blanckenberg said to WhichCar. It’s a valid point but, in the end, incentives shouldn’t be the only reason people buy electric cars in the first place. They should be just the icing on the cake.
Whether that strategy will pay off in the end remains to be seen but it’s obvious that BMW doesn’t see EVs as a long term, widespread mobility solution right now.
Even if the current debate about EVs is true (charging, price, etc) that notion by BMW that “… BMW doesn’t see EVs as a long term, widespread mobility solution” is absolutely moronic. The LONG TERM SOLUTION is EV. Geez, they are being stupid. Just for bragging rights about kicking 0-60 butt BMW should be worried. My Tesla can run circles around any current, higher priced BMW (yes, even if BMW’s “drift” better, pfffst).
Infrastructure grids not available in most of the world, people already die annually in extreme weather blackouts, how much of your daily commute is 0-60 or are you all about “bragging rights”?
Yeah i dont get these people …look I love the idea of EVs but on my entire continent its a car that doesnt make sense for now one day but not now …Ifrastructure is not here …BMW is the only one here that has a good amount of chargers
We’re not talking about third world companies.
The EU and North America.
You are not, but BMW *is* talking about the whole world.
OK. You can put in Solar on your Third World Country Roof faster and cheaper than you can build an oil refinery, or oil storage facilities or pipelines, and solar doesn’t burn or leak oil into your rivers and pollute your aquifer.
EV’s don’t blow up, and burn rate is far lower than gas cars too.
One important issue with this argument is that most EV buyers charge at home 99% of the time.
Infrastructure build out is just not that important for EV success.
Range is important.
But, remote charging infrastructure won’t hold back EV propagation.
Real world usage? 1st electric prototype in tge’70’s, 1st real world test fleets a decade ago. BMW management are way ahead of you.
Read the article.
Article contradicts your opinion.
No “opinion”, years old historic facts.
not circles…apparently tesla doenst handle that well just kidding tesla is good but lets be honest BMW know what they are doing …they are going to bring EVs into the market which are going to be great .PERIOD
Really? Big surprise. We’ve been saying this since this all started. People don’t want EV’s and especially EV BMW’s, they want performance & luxury BMW’s. If BMW wants to capitalize on EV investment, production, licensing, etc. go right ahead, take other companies monies as they go over the cliff into oblivion of EV and autonomy. People don’t want EV’s right now and they definitely don’t want autonomy.
Shareholders should be concerned this is the level of “leadership” at BMW.
With this kind of attitude you have to ponder how BMW can be a success in the near future.
There’s two ways to manage for the future:
1) Prepare
2) Ignore
Only one of these is a successful strategy.
BMW is preparing in my entire country they are the only ones with charging stations Jag has one or two
BMW produce more vehicles in a year than Tesla have in 12, they have committed billion$ to electric, why they issued their 1st earnings warnings in years.
This is a myopic view and does BMW a disservice. I’ve been a BMW CCA member for a long time. I own V8’s and I6 BMWs including M cars. I WANT an EV because of the torque. BMW has no real answer to the segment. VAG is at least trying with the eTron SUV and Taycan. I bought my M550i thinking it was my last ICE car and we shall see. The problem isn’t infrastructure, it’s a question of who will make a car that matches performance and luxury into a package without gimmicks. Tesla doesn’t have the luxury part of the equation. Their austere cars are NOT the same as minimalism. Porsche seems the closest to hitting the right mix but BMW seems to be digging its heels on the Luddite defense against EVs simply because of its missteps since the 2013 I-brand launch. BMW needs to understand that buyers want performance AND luxury in an EV. Stop crying foul when people fail to buy into the anemic PHEV version of an ICE car. I don’t want a green 5 series that feels like a Camry. Give me a fire breathing torque monster EV in a 5 series (or 3 series) body. The quirky i3 lacks the luxury or performance that I expect in an EV BMW.
BMW has a point …we are globally not ready for ev takeover its a fact but atleast BMW is trying to put the infrastructure in place
It’s painfully evident that BMW AG’s Board sits at home echoing its myopic view.
With the recent advent of switchable gears for electric motors we should soon see the German perspective shift – no longer should electric drivetrains suffer from compromised efficiency when driven at Autobahn speeds. This is not the case today, any PHEV or BEV drains its batteries super fast when sustaining 110mph cruising speed. In Germany, ICE still dominates due to the environment.
Conversely, if the folks at BMW iVentures were tasked to determine BMW AG’s product roadmap, I’d imagine it would appear much different. Here in Silicon Valley, the standard issue soccermom mobile is a Model X and charging infrastructure isn’t a matter of if, but which one en route.
ICE still dominates global market, BEV single digit %. BMW have invested billion$ in electric, are electrifying their range, German battery factory, Indian & Chinese EV co-productions, announced hydrogen X5, from i on the board is visionary, silicon valley is no more a representative EV market than is Norway.
Well, if BMW has nothing on the pipeline on alternate propulsion, I can truly understand why the crowd is so grumpy here.
It turns out BMW has more than just electric, even current ICE offerings are very exciting, they even have mental Diesel with insane performance, not to mention, they have hydrogen also. Just because they refuse to adapt a Tesla model by throwing a huge pack underneath the car, it’s not a sin.
They are focusing on battery tech instead, plus attempting to solve charging issues due to time and turnover efficiency by combining ICE to cancel out such issues, this is their strategy, I see nothing wrong with it, it works well, because very little has been compromised. People should just chill and stop barking.
I don’t know why I have to keep remind people that EV charging is not the same as refuelling in the pump, putting a cable to charge requires hours or at least 30 mins, and the battery probably still won’t be 100%. The pump, on the other hand, can serve up to 3 cars in 10 minutes, and I am talking about your tank will be full, so which is more efficient.
People keep talking about more charging networks available, but even if the infrastructure is on par with ICE, that still won’t solve the efficiency, because vehicle turnover will still be significantly lower than ICE, that’s why modern ICE and hybrid makes more sense.
The pump argument is a poor one when you consider that most EVs charge overnight at home.
You said it yourself, overnight, and you still assume everyone has EV charger at home. How about big cities? Ever see someone has to drive inside a mall to wait for charging, when vehicles behind want to park. I seen them all, it’s quite a struggle. That’s why hybrid currently able to solve the problem, EV tech still require a bit of time to evolve.
Street light chargers solve that problem easily. Ask your electric utility commission to implement.
Well, using street light is very intelligent like London, It’s an improvement but it doesn’t solve the equation side of efficiency. Parking your vehicle on the street poses higher security risk already, people nowadays vandalise anything, ever heard of chavs, helping to clean up rubbish bin at night. These creative artists not only capable of damaging whatever they touch, ever think of what they are capable of doing, when they see a charging cable, they may even bite it.
You need. to move.
I don’t need to move at all. I will just sleep through it, but for you, I am not so sure, park in the street nowadays at night is dangerous, car theft. In addition, chavs operates just like 711
Either you have somewhere to park your car (that is not “on the street”) in which case – you can arrange for power socket to be installed there. Or you don’t have such option and you have to park on the street anyway, so parking near a streetlight for a power socket is no extra inconvenience.
You seem to assume people don’t sleep.
There is no need to
brush and feed the horses, and clean out the stablesdrive to a place just to put gasoline in your car. You just park your car and fill her up. No time wasted on getting fuel. Sometimes you can even charge your car with free available energy from the sun. Like you have a oil refinery on top of your roof. Amazing times we live in.Owh and no wonder BMW says people are not ready for coffee, as all BMW sells atm is tea (not counting the wonderful i3).
I live in a 1st world nation of 7 million, MOST have NO access for charging, my 20th century underground parking has NONE. Even if solar was possible, unless you’re in Arizona, how much of that is wasted on our sub-zero winters? Your amazing times are in the future, you certainly are not typing from anywhere near reality.
Getting chargers in a parking garage is not a hard problem to solve.
Actually, it would help rental demand.
Well, no one wants to pay for anything, and no one wants to go through a pit stop, they all just wanted to go, just get in and drive, with nothing to manage.
If they want to go faster, just step on it, and let the nature and the tech takes care of itself, wouldn’t that be great, it will be awesome, but in order to get there, R&D, the right infrastructure plus it has to make dollars and cents.
Solar and EV are nice, Toyota, Hyundai are working on that, but the question is, are they ready? If they are indeed, everyone will be driving one.
Wow, comment devoid of content.
Wow, you have multiple identities
I don’t know why people keep forgetting, that when we charge at home, we NEVER have to stop at a gas station on our way to work. So, that’s No Time at home vs. 5-20 minutes at the gas pump, if you have to run into the store to pay for your gas. Plus the time to modify your route as you hunt for the cheapest Premium Fuel on your commute.
Also, you can preheat an EV in your garage, and you cannot do that with a gas engine.
Also, an EV gives you the smoothest running and quietest “engine” in the industry, with instant response times: Luxury Performance.
I don’t think you get it at all. Few minutes versus 30, or a few hours is a great deal. If you didn’t plug it in properly, next morning you are screw, but if I go to gas station, it wouldn’t happen, you will know it. Plus, some people drive plenty, have to deal with traffic, you need to refuel, just pump it up, can you recharge in 3 minutes.
“if you didn’t plug it in properly”
You’ve Never been even close to an EV, much less had any experience owning one.
No one “forgets”.
BMW’s i3 has 150 miles of range now, plus a REX option if you need it.
You have no idea how many miles that is.
Find the corner case, sure, that’s: .0001% of the population that needs gas.
Everyone forgets something once in a while. You go home, park the car and you forget to put it in. It’s possible, because you have to charge it daily. ICE, sometimes 6 to 8 days, so even if you crawl to petrol stations, you can still refuel in minutes. EV, won’t have that flexibility yet.
I don’t hate EV at all, but many things need to be right before I buy one. The home charger seems to be a good solution but not the best.
That’s why it gets interesting, hydrogen, next gen EV batteries, plus better infrastructure will eventually tilt the sales in favor of electric juice, but it takes time.
Right now, Tesla may seem awesome to Ev crowd, but build quality, customer support, servicing delay have to take a back seat, due to constant rush to meet financial objectives to avoid cash flow issues and further downgrades. Audi, Porsche, and Merc, may have EV rolling out, but price point, EV charging efficiency, plus battery tech are all 1st gen.
I don’t usually buy in newer tech until third gen, because by then, efficiency, cost and early adaptation issues will mostly be ironed out, but until that time, I will keep what works for me, which is modern ICE.
There will be a “statistical outlier” set of the population that will “forget” to plug in.
You don’t design your car solutions for the statistical outlier.
If you can’t keep your iPhone charged then yes, just you, can’t handle an EV.
Can’t comment on Australia but people definitely want EVs. They just want good EVs.
PHEV sales dropped in the UK, while BEV sales are surging.
Source: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/industry/battery-ev-sales-hit-new-peak-july-phev-struggle-continues
PHEV sales are back up. There was a transition this year to new emission framework due to which most PHEVs were not even made most of this year.
Bmw thesis that the world is not ready is absolute BS if you ask me…BMW is the one who isn’t ready because they failed to build upon the i3 ( even though Tesla model S, was technology wise light years ahead of the i3 in 2012), BMW had an edge compared to the other germans in 2012…
now in 2019, there are plenty of countries ready, especially in Europe and North America…I agree that not evey country in Europe is like Norway and the Netherlands, but there is a huge market in the world if you deliver good EVs at the right price ( Taycan is obscenely priced if you ask me, but Porsche isn’t looking to make EVs a thing for the average consumer)….
look at Tesla 3, who is smashing all the charts and going into history books….Tesla had 0 (as in ZERO) cars built in 2011 and in 2019 they will have 400k….from zero to 400k in 8 years, that’s 20% of BMW’s worldwide market share in just 8 years…and the the model Y hasn’t even started to be produced nor the Tesla Gigafactory in China started to pour out more model 3s in China….Tesla will be selling 600k-700k cars in the next 2 years easy counting the model Y and new factory in China …. BMW is the next Nokia, IBM, etc with this vision, history does repeat itself, I’m surprised everyone here doesn’t see that the only one not ready here is BMW….
Re-read what you said. *Some* countries in *Europe* and *some* states of *USA* are ready. The other 90% of the world are not even close. Check out how many chargers are in Brazil or Australia or Africa or Laos.
Building PHEVs is also best for the environment while battery supply is limited – one EV nees as much batteries as 5 PHEVs and most of the time PHEVs will be driven in EV mode anyway. So 1×100% is less 5×80%. So, until there are pure ICE vehicles sold, it is better to the environment to sell 5 PHEVs than 1 EV (and 4 ICE).
In theory, you’re correct.
If however the PHEV touches off the gas engine at every touch of the accelerator, you essentially don’t have a proper EV mode.
Additionally, now that we know an EV is a Premium Drive Experience, why anchor yourself down with a poor solution. Just buy an EV today, and give the battery industry incentive to expand faster.
We are talking in a BMW forum. BMW PHEVs work just fine. All of them have EV-only mode that can drive up to 130km/h without starting the petrol engine (unless you press the pedal all the way down past the kick-down resistance, that gives full power always for safety reasons). The newer PHEVs (like G20 330e) can even be configured to always start in the Max EV mode (as long there is charge in the battery). Plus in hybrid mode it automatically tries to use battery as much as possible and if you have navigation set, tries to always arrive with empty battery (so you can recharge more).
Sixteen miles of range is substandard for the industry.
So, no BMW’s PHEVs don’t “work fine”.
Moving the goal posts, mate. How much range is in each model is a different discussion. The point is that you can use every bit of that range in pure EV mode if you wish. Meanwhile 330e has 50km EV range and X5 xDrive45e has 100km of EV range. That is more than enough for everyday driving for vast majority of people.
PHEV is also better for the environment while production is constrained by battery availability – it is better to make 5 PHEV cars (that spend most time in EV mode) than 1 EV (with full size 400km battery) and 4 ICE cars.
So, this comment may have been made to help the German Government EXPAND EV Charging Infrastructure, and in that light, it’s actually a PRO EV argument.
Of course infrastructure has to improve, and if the auto companies are telling the Government a charging infrastructure would help, that helps the Nation and the Auto Industry.
We have to look at the political context of a comment sometimes.
Buyers of EV’s shouldn’t take the comment to mean now is not the time to buy an EV.