BMW To Price I8 Hybrid Model At More Than 100,000 Euros

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW), the world’s biggest maker of luxury vehicles, is sticking to plans to sell the i8 hybrid supercar for more than 100,000 euros ($125,400) when the model reaches customers in about two years.

BMW will price the i3 electric compact car, scheduled to go on sale at the end of 2013, “very competitively for the substance you get” from new powering technology, Ian Robertson, BMW’s global sales chief, told reporters today at the unveiling of the I sub-brand’s first sales outlet worldwide on London’s Park Lane.

The showroom “is a further demonstration of our commitment to electro-mobility,” Robertson said.

The German company is spending 530 million euros developing the sub-brand to keep its sales lead over Volkswagen AG (VOW)’s Audi unit and Daimler AG (DAI)’s Mercedes-Benz. The i8 will compete with Fisker Automotive Inc.’s $103,000 Karma rechargeable sedan, while the i3 would come out just before Saab Automobile introduces an electric version of its 9-3 car, according to plans announced today by the Swedish carmaker’s new owners.

BMW outlined a pricing strategy for the i3 and i8 when it displayed prototypes of the models almost a year ago. The I product range is likely to grow, though Munich-based BMW hasn’t decided on that yet, Robertson said.

Concept Base

The production model of the i3 is based 85 percent to 90 percent on the car’s concept version, Benoit Jacob, chief designer for the I models, said at the news conference.

BMW is considering offering I cars through a mobile sales force, which would operate in locations with no dealers, and over the Internet, the company said. BMW has used mobile teams to offer test drives at holiday resorts, said Linda Croissant, a BMW spokeswoman.

At the same time, “the dealer will remain the backbone of what we are doing in the interface with the customer,” Robertson said.

In Germany, 45 of BMW’s roughly 200 dealerships will sell I models, Robertson said.

To protect the sales outlets from the risk of dealing with new-technology cars, BMW will continue to own the vehicles, and the 45 I-brand showrooms will operate as agents rather than dealers, Karsten Engel, BMW’s head of sales in Germany, said earlier this month.

The cars are designed to accommodate an electric drive train and have a lightweight body structure made of a carbon- fiber composite. BMW has set up a partnership with German manufacturer SGL Carbon SE (SGL) to produce carbon fiber at a joint- venture plant in Moses Lake, Washington.

A range-extending small gasoline engine for the i8 hybrid model will be built at the carmaker’s Hams Hall engine plant in the British Midlands, Robertson said yesterday.

BMW to build hybrid car engine in UK

Hams Hall near Birmingham, the German carmaker said on Tuesday.

The UK factory will be the sole supplier of the three-cylinder, high-tech petrol engines for the car, which BMW will assemble in Leipzig and begin selling in the second half of 2013.

The announcement is the latest of several by global carmakers – including General Motors, Nissan, and Jaguar Land Rover – who are expanding their operations in Britain despite the festering crisis in the eurozone weighing on the industry’s main export market.

BMW’s choice of the highly automated plant, which produced its three millionth engine last week, will entail no new investment or job creation.

The engine is part of a pledge made by the company last year to invest £500m over three years in the UK, including at its Mini plant near Oxford and at Rolls-Royce in Goodwood.

Ian Robertson, BMW’s head of sales, said that the premium carmaker chose the UK over its plants in Munich and in Steyr, Austria primarily for currency hedging reasons.

“We have a lot of sales in pounds and we manufacture a lot in pounds, which gives us a natural ability to balance these things out,” Mr Robertson said. “We see the UK market as a very strong one going forward in terms of sales.”

Separately, BMW said it would open the first showroom worldwide for its BMWi hybrid and electric car brand on Park Lane in London on Wednesday.

The sub-brand, devoted to “sustainability”, is targeting drivers in big, densely populated megacities – like London – where BMW thinks 70 per cent of the world’s population will live within the next 20 to 30 years. In addition to the i8 hybrid, the carmaker plans to make the i3, an all-electric model.

BMW made the announcement at the International Automotive Summit, organised by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders lobby group, where several speakers sounded a positive note about the industry’s prospects despite the bearish mood in the broader economy and on world markets.

The SMMT said this week that UK-based carmakers could break the industry’s previous production record of 1.92m cars reached in 1972 by 2015, when output could surpass 2m for the first time.

Carmakers have cited the UK’s relatively flexible workforce, large domestic car market, and currency as reasons for expanding their investments in the UK.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, said that BMW’s decision to choose Hams Hall represented “more good news for the UK automotive sector and underlines its growing competitive strength”.

While BMW is one of Britain’s biggest carmakers, employing more than 7,000 people directly, it does the research and design work for its Mini and Rolls-Royce cars in Germany.

Mr Robertson said that this was unlikely to change.

“The core engineering – and particularly as we go forward with a multiplicity of products – that is likely to remain in Germany,” he said.

Texted sourced from:http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/005fb210-b49b-11e1-bb2e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1xbaeKm1V
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