Do you know where all the parts on your car come from, and how they got there?
And no, I don’t mean “from” as in “America” or “Germany” or “South Korea.” I mean, who made those parts, out of what, and how much energy did it really take to put that part onto your shiny new car?
I certainly don’t know that. It turns out most carmakers don’t, either. But BMW is changing things soon with the upcoming iX3 electric SUV, and soon, its other future models as well. And that all starts with the iX3’s grille. And on this bonus episode of the Plugged-In Podcast, BMW’s executives explain how they made that happen and why it matters.
(This episode was produced in partnership with BMW at Climate Week NYC.)
Photo by: Patrick George
The EV’s iconic “kidney grille” is the first BMW part where the carmaker understands the entire carbon footprint through the entire supply chain—from the genesis of the raw materials that compose it all the way to how it ends up on the final product. BMW calls this “the digitalization of the supply chain.”
It’s a dense name, to be sure, but it has an important purpose, and that’s to fully understand the whole car’s carbon footprint.
To understand more, we sat down with Hendrik Lang, BMW’s senior vice-president of supply chain strategy and sustainability, and Inga Grieger, the business development manager for BMW’s i Ventures strategic investment arm.
“We really followed through the whole supply chain, right to the raw materials, the exact product’s carbon footprint,” Lang said. “And we’ve now got a digital supply chain, which adds up the product’s carbon footprint through the supply chain.” It’s the start of a whole process at BMW designed to better understand and reduce carbon emissions across the board.
“At the moment, we’re working a lot with industry averages” when it comes to estimating carbon emissions, Lang said. “But if you really want to go to net zero, then you need [to understand] this exact product carbon footprint.”
That’s the grille. Next up: all the other parts of the car. And BMW says it’s working with all its different parts-supplier comanies to make sure that there is carbon clarity from start to finish.
“I would say in the past, digitalization of the supply chain often failed,” Lang said. “Because [supplier] companies didn’t want to share their data. They were worried about sharing data. The individual IT systems couldn’t talk to each other. They were incompatible. That’s why data chains didn’t work. And this is where we have a clear strategy
Photo by: Patrick George
That’s just the start of many sustainability-focused innovations being deployed on the iX3, which will then spread across the rest of the Neue Klasse EV family and the future BMW lineup over time. As we discuss on this episode, BMW’s larger goal is to create a greener, cleaner supply chain—and one that is more resilient against disruptions.
After all, the auto industry has seen plenty of those in recent years, and still is. You had the parts and chip shortages during the COVID-19 pandemic, tariff woes, fights with China over rare-earth magnets and other critical materials—it’s been a decade of challenges to even get cars built.
And it’s true that BMW Group is committed to the Paris Agreement and aims, by 2050 at the latest, to go net-zero in terms of carbon emissions. But in this episode, Lang makes a case that doing so actually makes for a better supply chain—and even a better car for its consumers.
“We believe that sustainability gives us a future-proof business model,” Lang said. “I definitely think it makes a better product. Our customers want to drive products that have a low impact. This is what our customers give feedback to us. And this is what we’re providing.”
Contact the author: patrick.george@insideevs.com
