BMW uncovers a new electric car, however, says it is not checking out gas engines right now

On Wednesday, BMW disclosed the i4, the furthest down the line expansion to its line of electric vehicles. And keeping in mind that the extravagance automaker intends to add more electric vehicles to its lineup, it clarified that it will in any case make cars with gas engines for the foreseeable future.

BMW chairman Oliver Zipse said in an online press conference, the organization will continue creating, building, and selling vehicles with internal combustion engines, including plug-in hybrids.

“If there are no customers [for these vehicles] in our 140 markets, we will stop producing them,” he said.

This is a takeoff from some of the other significant automakers. While not firmly committing itself, General Motors has said it intends to sell just zero-emission vehicles by 2035.

Volvo declared recently it will become a completely electric car brand by 2030. BMW, nonetheless, isn’t putting any timetable on when, or if, it will end up being an all-electric carmaker.

However, at some point, it might have very little choice. A few nations and states have said they intend to boycott sales of internal combustion-powered cars in the not-very-distant future.

Great Britain and the US state of California have proposed prohibitions on sales of internal combustion-powered vehicles, including hybrids, by 2035. Norway wants all new traveler vehicles and vans sold in that nation to be zero-emissions by 2025.

BMW’s procedure has long been to keep up adaptability in its engineering as it grows new vehicles with the goal that its factories can move rapidly and effectively from producing simply interior combustion cars to producing plug-in hybrids or electric vehicles as market demand shifts.

The basic engineering architectures for BMW vehicles are intended to make it simple for them to be worked with electric, hybrid, or purely internal combustion power.

“We are much more flexible than the world thinks we are,” Zipse said.

BMW released not many insights concerning its new i4 electric vehicle, past pictures of the exterior. It’s a four-door car comparable in profile to the petroleum-powered BMW 4-series. It will be accessible in versions with up to around 300 miles of US EPA-estimated driving range and can create up to 530 horsepower.

Last November, BMW revealed the iX, an all-electric SUV proposed as the top model for the brand’s “i” electric vehicle sub-brand. The iX is required to go into production later this year. The i4 is additionally expected to go on sale in Europe later this year and in the US early next year, a BMW representative said.

BMW will offer electric models in 90% of the market segments it contends in by 2023, the organization said in a declaration. By 2030, the organization anticipates that roughly half its global sales should be electric vehicles.

However, there is at least one brand in the BMW Group that is going all-electric. BMW’s Mini division will offer just electric vehicles by the mid-2030s, the organization reported.

Mini’s small cars, which are often determined short distances in metropolitan conditions, are appropriate to electric car purchasers, Zipse said. Mini at present offers one completely electric model, the Mini Cooper SE.

A next-generation version of the Mini Countryman SUV, which will go into production in 2023, will likewise be accessible in an electric version.

BMW additionally owns Rolls-Royce, the British ultra-luxury brand that sells vehicles like the Rolls-Royce Ghost and Phantom, which cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are no plans to make Rolls-Royce an electric-only brand, however an electric model is coming soon, Zipse said.

“There will be an electric Rolls-Royce in this decade and probably not late in this decade,” Zipse said.