Photo: BMW
It has been known, for quite a while now, that China’s biggest cities are facing the biggest pollution problems in the world, pictures of Chinese people wearing oxygen masks on the streets becoming viral a long time ago.
The sudden accumulation of wealth the Chinese experienced and the changing lifestyle they are going through at the moment, created a huge economic bubble and an accelerated sale of automobiles, one that took everyone by surprise.
In just a few years, China became the world’s largest auto market, overtaking the long-time champion, USA. The same happened to BMW sales, the world’s number one premium brand (in sales) following the same path and naming China their number one customer.
However, the smog accumulated above cities in China is mostly due to older models, those that are extremely ‘thirsty’ and ‘flatulent’ and not the latest gen models. To find a solution to this problem, the government is currently looking to spur on the sale of electric vehicles and take the old ones off the street.
This approach, made BMW’s Chinese branch manager, Karsten Engel say that the company is expecting China to become the world’s biggest EV market by 2019.
“We expect that the Chinese car market for electromobility will become the largest markets for those cars in a few years," Engel told reporters after a ceremony in Shanghai Wednesday. "Because you have supply now, there are cars coming on the market. We are coming with ours, others are coming as well."
Considering how fast the market grew in the communist country, the goal might very well be attained by then, if not earlier.
As for its own cars, BMW doesn’t sell the i3 and i8 models in the Asian country for now. However, Engel hopes to have the former in dealerships around the country by September. Even so, due to the high-demand, only about 1,000 i3s will probably make it to China this year.
In just a few years, China became the world’s largest auto market, overtaking the long-time champion, USA. The same happened to BMW sales, the world’s number one premium brand (in sales) following the same path and naming China their number one customer.
However, the smog accumulated above cities in China is mostly due to older models, those that are extremely ‘thirsty’ and ‘flatulent’ and not the latest gen models. To find a solution to this problem, the government is currently looking to spur on the sale of electric vehicles and take the old ones off the street.
This approach, made BMW’s Chinese branch manager, Karsten Engel say that the company is expecting China to become the world’s biggest EV market by 2019.
“We expect that the Chinese car market for electromobility will become the largest markets for those cars in a few years," Engel told reporters after a ceremony in Shanghai Wednesday. "Because you have supply now, there are cars coming on the market. We are coming with ours, others are coming as well."
Considering how fast the market grew in the communist country, the goal might very well be attained by then, if not earlier.
As for its own cars, BMW doesn’t sell the i3 and i8 models in the Asian country for now. However, Engel hopes to have the former in dealerships around the country by September. Even so, due to the high-demand, only about 1,000 i3s will probably make it to China this year.
Google News