"No barriers" to electric car adoption for BMW iX1 and iX2 customers, says Mercedes and Audi rival that's been selling EVs since 2014

When asked what might be the thing holding back more customers from going electric, BMW Australia head of Product and Market Planning Brendan Michel said he’d heard “no barriers” to electric car adoption from dealer feedback. 

Contrary to the range anxiety, price parity and product differences you might expect, it sounds like a significant portion of BMW’s Australian customers are willing to dive into electric cars. 

“I think when you look at our model portfolio, when you buy our BEVs, they look like our internal combustion equivalent, the operating system inside the car is exactly the same”, said Mr Michel.  

“So I think with that transition, we’re finding customers that may have been in a petrol are coming now into an iX3 and everything’s so familiar for them”, he added. 

Illustrating this were BMW’s sales last month. The Bavarian carmaker delivered nearly as many i4s as it did 3 Series sedan and wagons – 206 electric four-doors played 219 combustion cars. Year-to-date sales are 663 and 938, respectively. 

Partially, this is down to BMW’s aggressive price strategy on select models. The German brand dropped the 320i variant and the most affordable 3 Series is now the $94,700 190kW 330i sedan. That’s undercut by the 210kW i4 eDrive35 ($85,900) and only marginally cheaper than the 250kW eDrive40 M Sport ($102,900, all before on-road costs).

This isn’t consistent range-wide – BMW sells plenty of expensive EVs. The entry-level iX large SUV, for example, is $136,900 and the forthcoming i5 Touring M50/60 lists at a staggering $219,900, all before on-road costs.

As for converting combustion buyers, Mr Michel noted the fully-featured package supplied by BMW. “We’ve got all the cables you need supplied with the car, we’ve got a wallbox if you need, we’ve got ChargeFox subscriptions with the car, we’ve done everything on our side to make the transition as seamless as possible.”

This offer is matched by many premium brands including Audi, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz who typically include relevant charging cables, charge network subscriptions and sometimes home wallbox installation. 

It’s easy to forget that BMW was one of the first carmakers to build electric cars. Early adopters trickled out to buy experimental carbon fibre-infused i3 and i8 models as early as 2014 in Australia. 

“We’ve been selling BEVs since 2014, more than 10 years, with the i3. Our dealer network is well prepared for this change”, emphasised Brendan. 

As for EV market share, in the first quarter of 2024 BMW’s sales split was over 24 per cent electric, a long way ahead of the 7.9 per cent industry-wide figure.