Finance boss says brand looking to reduce options including engines
BMW needs to pay for EV development, build margins
The ever-increasing expansion of models and sub models at BMW is set to stop, said the automaker’s head of finance in a new report where he said that BMW would have to simplify its portfolio. That’s to cover the automaker’s big investments in electric vehicles, though he said that BMW doesn’t need to merge with another automaker to make it through the transition.
Nicolas Peter told Reuters that in order to help pay for electric car development and to recover its pre-pandemic profit targets, that the automaker would need to simplify its portfolio of models.
In the last two decades, BMW has massively expanded its line from just a few basic lines to more than a dozen including cars and crossovers. More than that, even the many new models have extensive derivatives including the seeming overlap of cars like the 3-Series sedan and 4-Series Gran Coupe. Briefly, BMW’s line was even more crowded with hatchback GT models offering a startling amount of choice for one low-volume brand.
At the current time, as it slowly begins to reveal a new i electric car lineup, EVs are not as profitable for the brand. They’re costly to develop using cutting-edge technology and make up a sliver of sales.
“That’s why investment is so important,” Peter said. “We have to find ways to get to a different cost level, especially with cells and batteries.”
To help cut costs in other places, BMW is looking at reducing engine variants and vehicle options, dropping little-used features and overhauling software to make building vehicles more efficient, says the report.
Will BMW end up in a Stellantis-like merger to help weather the storm? “We are very confident we can make it alone,” Peter said.
