BMW accelerates electric vehicle rollout plans

In addition to showing off its

Vision M Next electric concept

and a

711-horsepower electric 5 Series

,

BMW

announced today that it has accelerated its

EV

rollout schedule, and it projects massive increases in

electric vehicle

sales in the coming years. The German automaker also announced technology for its future

plug-in hybrid

vehicles to cut emissions in high-traffic city centers.

“By 2021, we will have doubled our sales of electrified vehicles compared with 2019,” Harald Krüger, chairman of the board of BMW AG, said in a statement.

“We will offer 25 electrified vehicles already in 2023 — two years earlier than originally planned. We expect to see a steep growth curve towards 2025: Sales of our electrified vehicles should increase by an average of 30 percent every year,” he added.

BMW boasts that it has sold more than 150,000

i3

hatchbacks globally, and again confirmed that the all-electric

2020 Mini Cooper S E will go into production

at its plant in Oxford, U.K., later this year. The BMW iX3 will follow in 2020, built at BMW’s plant in Shenyang, China. In 2021, the iNEXT will be produced in Dingolfing, Germany, and the i4 in Munich, Germany.

In addition to these fully electric vehicle launches, BMW has big plans for plug-in hybrid technology. A so-called eDrive Zones function will be standard on all BMW plug-in

hybrids

starting in 2020. This tech will force vehicles to shut off their internal combustion engines and rely solely on electric power in cities that establish emission-free “green zones” anywhere in the world.

A pilot eDrive Zone is already in the works at the BMW’s Electric City Drive, a pilot project between the German automaker, the City of Rotterdam and Erasmus University.