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| Sales of BMW electric cars doubled this year |
Sales of BMW's all-electric vehicles rose 121.4% to 59,688 units in the first nine months of 2021 as the German automaker said electric vehicles had become a key growth driver and success factor for the company.
From January to September, the Munich-based company sold a total of 231,575 all-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles, an increase of 98.9%.
In contrast, Elon Musk's Tesla subsidiary said it delivered 241,300 vehicles in the third quarter of 2021 alone.
BMW electric vehicle sales data comes from the earnings report. Net income for the third quarter of 2021 was 2.58 billion euros ($2.99 billion), up 42.4% year-on-year. However, compared to the third quarter of 2020, auto shipments are down 12.2%.
The company said the company was increasingly affected by the delivery bottlenecks of semiconductor components in the third quarter of 2021. This led to production bottlenecks and a dip in sales between July and September 2021. However, this impact was offset by the positive price effect for new and used vehicles.
According to the company, fully electric vehicles should account for at least 50% of deliveries by 2030.
BMW is far from Tesla
BMW is one of the many well-known companies driving the electrification strategy. In March of this year, Volvo announced that it would become an all-electric car manufacturer by 2030.
In July this year, Volkswagen said that by 2030, half of its sales are expected to be electric vehicles.
By 2040, almost 100% of its new cars are expected to be zero-emissions in the most important markets.
This shift to electric vehicles comes at a time when major economies of the world are striving to reduce the environmental impact of traffic.
For example, the UK hopes to stop selling diesel and petrol cars and trucks by 2030. From 2035, all cars and trucks should be zero-emissions.
The European Commission also plans to cut carbon dioxide emissions from cars and trucks by 100% by 2035.