Photo: BMW
Up until just a few hours ago, the BMW Leipzig plant used to make 70 i3 cars a day, a number that proved to be too little to cope with the ever increasing orders for the electric vehicle. In order to keep their customers satisfied and the waiting lists shorter, the Germans decided to increase the production by 43% to 100 units a day, according to Automotive News, quoting Harald Krueger.
“The United States will be the biggest market for the i3. Because of this, we have started raising production levels and are currently at around 100 cars a day," Krueger said on Tuesday.
The statement comes as no surprise as American dealerships started taking orders for the i3 this month and the response was better than expected, the car already being ordered in more than 11,00 units so far, on a global scale, only 5,000 making it out of the plant in the last 5 months.
With no real competition from its German rivals at the moment, BMW can very well do as it pleases in the US, waiting for a comeback from Audi and Mercedes. The former actually offers plug-in hybrid alternatives but no real fully electric vehicle.
The i3 starts at $41,350 in the US, before government grants and BMW hopes to sell more than 8,000 units on the North American continent alone this year.
The statement comes as no surprise as American dealerships started taking orders for the i3 this month and the response was better than expected, the car already being ordered in more than 11,00 units so far, on a global scale, only 5,000 making it out of the plant in the last 5 months.
With no real competition from its German rivals at the moment, BMW can very well do as it pleases in the US, waiting for a comeback from Audi and Mercedes. The former actually offers plug-in hybrid alternatives but no real fully electric vehicle.
The i3 starts at $41,350 in the US, before government grants and BMW hopes to sell more than 8,000 units on the North American continent alone this year.
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