Almost one in 10 BMWs built in 2024 will run on electricity. Of the 206,000 cars sold, the i4 M50 was the most popular from the M division.
2024 was the best year ever. At least for BMW's M division. However, it's not the combustion engine that's pulling the load.
Looking at the numbers, 9.4 percent – almost one in ten new cars from the M department – is an electric car. Specifically, M customers last year largely chose a new i4 M50.
The Performance department built 206,582 cars during 2024. An improvement of two percent compared to 2023.
In case you forgot, the i4 M50 is a four-door coupe-style car. Engine-wise, there's 544 horsepower and 795 newton meters to go. In comparison, the petrol-powered M3 has 510 horsepower and 650 Nm from a three-liter inline-six with twin turbos.
But unlike the i4, the M3 is available with perhaps the most iconic BMW drivetrain to date – rear-wheel drive. However, this apparently means less to customers.
The combustion engine, which BMW refuses to abandon, still has a strong hold on the audience. The small and in many ways controversially designed M2 sold 64 percent better than in 2023. And the equally new M3 Touring advanced by 57 percent.
Even though electric cars are gradually taking up more and more space at BMW – and the brand has long since stopped building combustion engines at home in Germany – this does not mean that the Germans are throwing all their resources at electric cars with a cord.
A new collaboration with Toyota is set to result in BMW's first mass-produced hydrogen car to date. However, this week it emerged that the Japanese are officially wavering in their faith in hydrogen cars.
“I no longer see a bright future for hydrogen cars,” Hiroki Nakajima, chief technology officer of Toyota Motor Corp., told the Financial Times .
However, the Japanese have no intention of throwing the entire hydrogen idea overboard just because many of their competitors are looking in a different direction. This, says the technology director, will go beyond the future.
– But if we give up on this technology, we risk giving up on the future, adds Nakajima.
