Yesterday, BMW CEO Harald Krueger revealed its new business plan at the company’s Annual Accounts Press Conference in Munich, where it confirmed a slew of new cars that will be introduced over the next few years, right up to the next decade.
First up will be a facelift for the BMW i3, which will be arriving in the second half of this year – the update will bring about revised design, while the battery capacity is said to have been increased by 50% over the current car. This could mean that the all-electric model could travel up to 200 km, up from the 130 km range of the existing i3.
Krueger also confirmed that the long-awaited BMW i8 Spyder will finally arrive in 2018 – the topless variant of the hybrid sports car was previewed by a concept that debuted at Auto China 2012 in Beijing; an updated version with gesture control and a 21-inch panoramic display was shown at CES 2016 as the BMW i Vision Future Interaction. Elsewhere, a MINI plug-in hybrid model will be introduced “in the coming years.”
After that will be an all-new BMW i model, which will be launched at the beginning of the next decade. To be called the iNEXT, the car will bring “new forms of automated driving and digital connectivity together with a new generation of electric mobility, lightweight construction and trailblazing interior design,” BMW claims.
This could mean that that the iNEXT will be the company’s first fully autonomous car, in line with reports that BMW will field self-driving cars into production by the end of the decade. This is part of the company’s Project i 2.0 strategy that will push high-definition digital maps, sensor technology, cloud technology and artificial intelligence forward in the pursuit of autonomous driving.
It’s not just hybrid and electric cars that BMW will focus on, as Krueger reiterated the company’s commitment to traditional internal combustion engine technology. To that end, Krueger stated that the brand will be expanding the M range of high-performance cars further beyond the M3, M4, M5 and M6 core models, citing the new M2 as an example. A similar expansion is also slated for the halfway house M Performance range.
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The front bumper make the i8 look slim and ‘unstable’.
BMW please look around, your friends out there.