BMW Has Officially Dethrones Tesla In Europe
BMW Has Officially Dethrones Tesla In Europe
The Bavarian automaker has sold more EVs than the American giant. But how they have done so paints a grim picture for the future of Tesla.
Tesla dominates the EV market. By now, that fact seems as universal as water being wet. But the tide is turning. I, along with many others, have been saying for years that Musk’s questionable plans would fail to keep Tesla at the head of the industry, and we are starting to see those predictions come true. You see, another EV pioneer, BMW, recently sold more EVs in Europe than Tesla, making them the first automaker to surpass Tesla in the West. This alone is huge news, but when you dig a little deeper and realise why BMW’s EVs outsold Tesla, it paints a grim future for the American juggernaut.
Let’s start with how good BMW’s EVs are.
Their bestselling EV is the iX1, and it’s about as middle-of-the-pack as possible. This £45,465 EV has a 66.5 kWh, 400V battery pack from CATL, giving a WLTP range of 295 miles and charging rates of 128 kW, meaning it can charge from 10% to 80% in 30 minutes. Its rear mount’s 201 horsepower engine gives it a relatively slow 0–60 mph time of 8.3 seconds. It is based on BMW’s compact SUV, the X1, so it has the same 490-litre boot and high-quality interior. In today’s market, this is pretty standard for that price point.
Tesla’s best-selling EV in Europe is the standard Model Y. In fact, the Model Y is still the best-selling EV in Europe. However, BMW sold more EVs as a company in Europe than Tesla. The base Model Y costs slightly more than the iX1 at £44,990. For that, you get a smaller 60 kWh, 400V BYD LFP Blade Battery pack, giving it a smaller WLPT range of 283 miles but a faster charge rate of 175 kW, meaning it can charge from 10% to 80% in 18 minutes. It’s quite a bit more powerful than the BMW with 295 horsepower, but 0–60 isn’t that much faster at 6.9 seconds. Being a dedicated EV platform, it is far better packaged than the BMW, meaning that even though it is about the same size, it has nearly double the boot space.
As such, it’s no wonder the Model Y is still the best-selling EV in Europe; it’s simply a better buy than anything BMW has. Or it is if the Y is exactly what you are looking for.
You see, BMW hasn’t outsold Tesla by having better EVs, but by offering more variety. Tesla only sells four models in Europe: the Model S, X, 3 and Y. The X and S now sell in such tiny numbers they may as well not be sold, and the 3 and Y only come in three very similarly related trim levels. This tiny product line up means Tesla misses out on huge portions of the market.
By comparison, BMW has the aforementioned iX1, as well as the iX2, iX3, i4, i5, i5 Touring, i7 and iX. What’s more, each model has up to 4 different trim levels, as well as a huge variety of options and customisation. BMW also owns Mini, which sells the electric Mini, Mini Aceman and Mini Countryman.
How has BMW achieved such a vast electric line-up? Well, only one of these vehicles is based on a dedicated EV platform, the iX. The rest are EV versions of their combustion vehicles made with off-the-shelf, readily available components from third parties. This means they don’t have to spend a huge amount developing entirely new platforms, saving them billions of dollars in R&D. It also makes production far cheaper. Only 15% of BMW’s sales are EVs. But this means that the chassis, bodywork and interiors used in the EVs are built on a far larger scale than the likes of Tesla, and this saves vast amounts of money through the economy of scale, hence why they can sell their EVs at a competitive price.
This brilliant approach is how BMW has outsold Tesla. The breadth and customisation of their product line-up can better meet many customers’ needs, wants and desires than Tesla can.
Tesla’s minuscule offering was brilliant back when there wasn’t a huge variety in the EV market. Back then, it made sense for Tesla to develop a small number of EVs with better specs than a large number of models with not-so-good specs. But the likes of BMW have changed the market, giving more choice to customers, rendering this once strength of Tesla’s a weakness.
However, unlike BMW, Tesla is going to really struggle to expand its product offering. For one, it doesn’t have a huge range of readily available combustion vehicles to convert into EVs like BMW. Secondly, Tesla’s newest model, the Cybertruck, can’t be sold in most places outside the US as it, predictably, utterly fails pedestrian safety measures. However, Tesla’s platforms (the S/X, the 3/Y, and the Cybertruck) will also struggle to spawn new models. These platforms have been hyper-streamlined, with technology like gigacasting huge portions of the car and the Cybertruck’s stainless-steel body. As such, producing a new model off these platforms would require enormous re-engineering, likely to the point where it would be more efficient just to develop a new platform.
Tesla is trying to expand its offering with the upcoming “Model 2”, but after Musk’s pivot to robotaxis and the Model 2’s disappointing predicted cost and specifications, it is questionable if Tesla will even push this model or if it will have market success. After all, VW, Kia, Renault, BYD, MG and Citroën all have cars on sale or coming that would undercut the 2 while having better specs.
Meanwhile, BMW is developing the most flexible EV platform ever, the Neue Klasse, and doing what Tesla is doing, but better, with their in-house Gen 6 batteries.
The Neue Klasse platform is genius. It uses production automation and recycling to reduce production costs by 25%. This means it doesn’t need to use gigacasting to reduce costs, and as such, the platform is far more flexible and can be used in far more vehicles. In fact, the platform has four variants: the NAx for smaller models, the NBx for larger models, the NDx for premium class models, and finally, the ZAx for performance models. BMW also confirmed that six models on the platform will be released between 2025 and 2027 on the NAx and NBx variants, with more coming down the line.
This will broaden BMW’s EV offering even further and significantly reduce production costs, but these Neue Klasse EVs will also have far better specs thanks to their Gen 6 batteries.
The Gen 6 is a battery BMW has developed and will build in-house. Like Tesla’s 4680, it uses a large cylindrical format, being 46mm wide and either 95mm or 120mm tall. This large size dramatically reduces the number of cells in a pack and enables structural battery packs, which dramatically reduce the production cost. But the similarities to the 4680 end there. Unlike Tesla, BMW uses normal, proven production methods, making these cells easy to produce. Also, unlike Tesla, which has tried to use pure silicon anodes to increase charge times, the Gen 6 battery packs will use 800V architecture, a far cheaper and far easier way to achieve much better charge times. BMW is also building its own Gen 6 battery factories in Canada, China, Europe, Mexico, and the US to save shipping costs and carbon emissions. As such, the Gen 6 is predicted to get 30% more range, 30% faster charging, and cost 50% less than the cells BMW currently uses.
The 4680 was also meant to hit these marks, but due to Tesla’s questionable design choices, this hasn’t happened and likely won’t. Musk has told his engineers if they can’t sort it out by the end of the year, he will scrap the whole 4680 project (which has cost Tesla literally billions upon billions of dollars so far).
In short, BMW has outsold Tesla by having a larger line-up as the EV market becomes more competitive, despite having EVs that offer worse specifications for the money. Because of how Tesla has designed its cars, it can’t expand its line-up anywhere near fast enough to solve this issue and stay on top. But, over the next few years, BMW is poised to offer an even larger EV line-up with cheaper EVs that offer as good, if not better, specs than Tesla.
It’s no wonder Musk is pivoting Tesla to robotaxis. Their days as the dominant EV maker are numbered, and they will likely get buried by companies like BMW in just a few years.
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Sources: Autocar, Bloomberg, Bimmerfile, EV Database, EV Database, BMW, Will Lockett