BMW AG plans to produce an additional quarter of a million electric cars in the coming three years, according to the German automaker’s chief executive officer.
“We already had ambitions growth plans and want to further expand our market position,” CEO Oliver Zipse said in an interview with the Augsburger Allgemeine newspaper published Sunday. Electric vehicles will account for about a fifth of BMW’s sales by 2023, up from about 8% now, he added.
Zipse said his “biggest concern” is that Germany’s transition to E-cars will be hampered by a lack of charging infrastructure, with Europe’s biggest economy expected to have as many as 10 million of the vehicles on the road by 2030. To cope with this amount, 15,000 private and about 1,300 public charging points would have to be put into operation every week starting now, he told the paper.
“Unfortunately we are far from that,” Zipse said. “Therefore, the next big joint project in Europe must be to expand charging infrastructure.”