BMW: Group boss Zipse warns of "shrinking course" in the case of early farewell to combustion engines

BMW does not want to retire the combustion engine until later than Audi.

If the technology was abandoned prematurely, half of the market could no longer be served in 2030, warns CEO Zipse.

Munich - BMW boss Oliver Zipse has defended his group's strategy of getting out of the production of classic internal combustion engines more slowly than, for example, the domestic competitor Audi. “The real decision-makers in our industry are the customers. And you should never lose sight of them, ”said Zipse in an interview with the

and the

(Monday).

He referred to the plans of the Munich group to sell half of the cars with purely battery-electric drives in 2030.

"If a manufacturer no longer has a combustion engine range, then half the market volume will be lost and the company is on a downward path." In the next 15 years there will be cities, regions and countries in which the process of transformation to electromobility is taking place complete.

But that will not be the case in the total of 140 BMW markets worldwide.

BMW competitor Audi only wants to sell electric cars by 2033

The Volkswagen subsidiary Audi recently announced that it would bring the last combustion engine onto the market in the middle of the decade. From 2032 or 2033, the Ingolstadt-based company will only sell vehicles with electric drives worldwide. In contrast, Daimler has decided for its Mercedes-Benz brand that the entire new vehicle fleet should be CO2-neutral from 2039. CEO Ola Källenius has indicated that the company could set itself more ambitious goals and wants to give a strategy update this year, as he

told

the

and the

.