BMW Warns Staff to Take EV Revolution Seriously

BMW AG is holding a series of sobering rallies for employees to warn them that they must prepare for an “electric assault” on the traditional auto industry, Bloomberg News reports.

The sessions, which began in January, advise employees to take “very seriously” BMW’s need to rapidly expand its ability to make electrified vehicles, including many that will drive themselves.

Bloomberg says BMW has exposed some 14,000 engineers, marketing staffers and plant managers to the day-long events to brief them on such innovations as car-sharing apps, advanced traffic sensors, propulsion batteries, self-driving technologies and other challenges to traditional carmaking. Says one BMW executive, “We’re either part of this shift, or it goes on without us.”

A worried CEO Harald Krueger is driving the effort to jump-start BMW’s employees. Although the company is enjoying strong sales of its conventional vehicles, it’s falling behind such rivals as Audi and Mercedes-Benz in rolling out hybrid an all-electric vehicles that will be needed to meet future emission and fuel economy targets.

“BMW has lost its leadership in innovation,” warns Juergen Pieper, an analyst at Bankhaus Metzler in Frankfurt. He says the company to date hasn't been "brave enough to get into pioneering projects and do something really new.”