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BMW Blog had the opportunity to interview Dr. Klaus Draeger, BMW AG board member and Chief of Research & Development about BMW i and its future. Here is an excerpt of the interview:
BMWBLOG: BMW i. What are the expectations for short term and long-term? How does BMW differentiate itself from all these competitors coming up with electric cars?
Dr. Klaus Draeger: I’ll try to answer that in a nutshell. We see more and more customers that have the clear wish for premium mobility and absolute sustainability, and this is exactly what we want to give them with the BMW i – either the i3 or the i8. Sustainability starts right after the development process and goes to the suppliers, to the BMW production and of course afterwards to the usage of the car, until it comes to the end of the resulting process.
BMWBLOG: If you want to describe to a customer, how would you differentiate a typical BMW vehicle from other electric vehicles, like Nissan Leaf?
Dr. Klaus Draeger: I think the best thing is to have a look at the Leaf and to look at the i3 – its design, functionality, how the car feels. I don’t want to discuss about the competitors, but if I look at the Nissan Leaf, it’s pretty much a normal car, in terms of how the car is built, made of steel and so on. And this is another important thing, because if we take the BMW approach with the carbon fiber – which is produced in Washington state with hydropower – the way we produce the vehicle in Leipzig with renewable energy, this gives a whole lifetime a reduced CO2 emission. And this CO2 emission incorporates production, components, and the energy usage during lifetime, which is depending on which energy mix you are choosing for electric energy, by 30-50% lower than a conventional vehicle. And this is what I mean with sustainable driving.
BMWBLOG: Do you think a competitive price would speed up the adoption of BMW electric vehicles?
Dr. Klaus Draeger: Of course that we know that the vehicles are price-sensitive. We can’t talk today about a price range, but we know that we have to choose the right price, because otherwise we are not going to make sales.
