BMW Board to Huddle over EV Strategy

BMW AG’s management board will meet at the end of the month in hopes of breaking an impasse about how quickly the company should pursue the electric car market, sources tell Reuters.

Some board members think BMW should wait for the company’s i3 electric city car to gain sales traction and bolster the overall business case for EVs. Others, led by Chairman Norbert Reithofer, believe BMW must accelerate EV development now, even though doing so could erode the company’s hefty profit margin.

Reuters says BMW also will discuss how to retain staff for its EV program. In March Carsten Breitfeld, who headed the company's i8 plug-in hybrid program, left to joint Future Mobility Corp., a Chinese EV startup. He has been joined by three other senior executives from the program.

BMW has upgraded the i3’s battery to give the car more range, which may improve sales. The company also is developing an electric midsize crossover vehicle. And Reuters’ sources say the board is warming to the idea of adding an all-electric version of the Mini in 2019, even though re-engineering the car's platform would be costly.

Still, the company isn't expected to add a third electrified model to its i-Series until 2020. And in April it restructured the “i” division, originally created to pursue electric and hybrid vehicles, to focus instead on technologies for self-driving cars.