BMW Group today announced its plan to invest over 30 million Euros towards future-oriented technologies by 2025. The company has said that new technologies are key to the future of mobility and the investment will go towards research and development, which will also strengthen the carmaker's position as an innovation leader. The statement was made at BMW Group's Annual Accounts Press Conference, where the company also announced that the Group revenues have exceeded 100 billion euros for the first time.
Also Read: BMW To Launch 5 Electric Models By 2021
Commenting on the company's investment plan, Oliver Zipse, Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG, said, "The ability to integrate diverse technologies to form a complete system is vitally important. Those companies capable of developing and combining hardware and software in equal measure will shape the future of the automobile. In this respect, we are quite clearly in the fast lane."
Including the BMWi4, the company plans to launch 5 electric cars by 2021
BMW Group is also aiming to achieve the new CO2 targets at an early stage and to do that the company has decided to systematically electrify its model range. The company has already announced its plan to introduce 5 new electric models by 2021, which includes - the BMW i3S, iX3, iNext, i4, and Mini Cooper SE. Furthermore, the company has officially confirmed that the next-generation BMW 7 Series will get an all-electric version, equipped with a fifth-generation electric drivetrain. So, in total, the new-gen 7 Series four powertrain options - petrol, diesel, plug-in hybrid and battery-electric vehicle (BEV) model.
Also Read: 2019 BMW 7 Series Hybrid First Drive Review
The company says that over the past eight years, it has trained nearly 46,000 employees in the field of electric mobility. The company has been securing access to raw materials needed to produce electric vehicles, and since early 2020, started procuring the required cobalt and lithium directly and passing those resources on to the suppliers involved in manufacturing battery cells. In fact, by 2023, the BMW Group will have 25 electrified models in its line-up and more than half of them will be all-electric models.
Also Read: BMW i8 Production To End In April 2020
The next-gen BMW 7 Series will get an all-electric version, in addition to petrol, diesel, and hybrid powertrains
To make those heavy investments in the future, the company will have to give high priority to profitability and free cash flow in the present. It is specifically concentrating on capital expenditure and consistent management of working capital. Nicolas Peter, Member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, Finance said, "We are already making measurable progress, which will continue to have a noticeably positive impact on earnings - whether in terms of sales, the cost of materials or indirect purchasing."
BMW is also working on streamlining operations and says that the company's Performance NEXT programme is expected to generate efficiency savings of over 12 billion euro by the end of 2022. Furthermore, BMW also says that the development times for new vehicle models will be reduced by as much as one third. BMW plans to eliminate up to 50 per cent of traditional drivetrain variants from 2021 onwards, in its process of adopting electrified drivetrains. One of the Group's targets is to double its sales volume in the luxury segment from 2018 to 2020.
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