BMW, which is among the top three global EV makers, will focus on battery electric vehicles (BEV), a senior company official said.
The company plans to invest heavily in EV infrastructure, Jean-Philippe Parain, senior vice-president, Asia-Pacific region said.
It is going to bring its new EV architecture Neue Klasse X in India. BMW is the third largest EV brand globally, after Tesla and BYD.
Asked if the company is looking at hybrids as the sales of EVs drop globally, Parain said: “We have a strong growth momentum for Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV)s both in India and globally. The share of EV sales in the region I am responsible for has grown from 8 per cent to 13-14 per cent in a few years.
“In a market like India, there is potential for EVs and we have successfully introduced the i7, i5, ix. We are trying to bring all our products here so long as taxation on EVs is beneficial.”
Adoption, Paraink said, was dependent on subsidies and “we have seen subsidies being reduced due to budget constraints”.
Where subsidies are increased, such as Australia, EV adoption rose to 25 per cent from 3 per cent. Worldwide the level of adoption is lower than expected.
Parain urged that the strongest incentives should be on EVs.
“Plug-in hybrids are the road to electric vehicles, it can be a transition, and it has its use cases like long-distance travel. In India, we will focus on fully electric vehicles. You can achieve more if you focus on one technology,” said Parain, who is also the senior vice-president of Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa.
