- The BMW i4 accounted for more than half of 4 Series sales in North America in 2024.
- BMW Group is struggling in Germany and China, but its U.S. EV sales reached a new record last year.
- Its first Neue Klasse model will go on sale in the U.S. later this year.
The BMW Group is facing the wrath of fierce competition from burgeoning Chinese automakers, but its electric vehicle business continues to be a bright spot, especially in North America.
In 2024, BMW and Mini sales fell by 13.4% in China, its largest market by sales volume. Across Asia, sales declined by 10.2%, and registrations dropped by 5.3% in Germany. It’s really tough out there right now for some of Germany’s legacy automakers who are trying to stay relevant in markets increasingly dominated by the likes of BYD, Xpeng, Xiaomi and more.
But things look different when it comes to battery-powered cars, especially in North America. BMW set a new record for EV sales in the U.S., with nearly 51,000 units sold. Its U.S. EV sales increased to 50,981 units from 45,417 units the year before. The i4 and the i5 helped it break that record, eating into the sales of their gas-powered counterparts in the 4 Series and 5 Series line-ups.
Photo by: InsideEVs
BMW sold 42,608 4 Series models in North America in 2024. That includes the gas-powered 4 Series Coupe, Gran Coupe, Convertible, i4 and the M models. The electric i4 accounted for a whopping 23,403 units of the 4 Series in the U.S. alone. That puts the share of the i4 in the 4 Series line-up at well over 50%—a sign that the 4 Series is now primarily a battery-powered range.
The i4 might be cannibalizing 3 Series sales as well. BMW sold only 31,300 3 Series models in the U.S. last year, a nearly 8% drop.
U.S. sales of the i5 grew fourfold, increasing from 2,133 units in 2023 to 8,763 units last year. BMW sold 25,315 5 Series models in North America in 2024. The i5 accounts for more than one-third of that in the U.S. alone. By comparison, Mercedes-Benz sold nearly 12,000 EQEs stateside last year. However, while EQE sales dropped by 40%, the i5 grew by 310%.
Sales of the iX and i7 pale in comparison to its siblings, with the former dropping by 11.1% and the latter improving slightly by 1%.
Electrification hasn’t been so kind to sedans, barring the Tesla Model 3. The Hyundai Ioniq 6, despite being a great car with a striking design, is now a sales dud. Sales of Mercedes-Benz’s jelly bean-shaped electric sedans are nosediving. Electric crossovers, meanwhile, are stealing the show. General Motors staged a comeback solely on the back of electric crossovers like the Chevy Equinox EV and Cadillac Lyriq.
The BMW i4 and i5 seem to be defying this trend. They have achieved this success despite riding on the aging Cluster Architecture (CLAR), a gas-car platform reconfigured for EVs. They look good, are phenomenal to drive and come festooned with tech. Their driving range and charging performance seem mediocre, but that’s set to improve on the Neue Klasse models.
“It’s a lovely, fast, high-tech and high-performance sports sedan, exactly what BMW made its bones on and continues to do today,” InsideEVs’ Editor-in-Chief Patrick George wrote of the i4 M50 last year.
The first of BMW’s Neue Klasse models, developed on a BEV-native and software-focused platform, will go on sale later this year. So rest assured that there’s more to come from the German automaker; it now has a real chance to fill the gaps and address the shortcomings of its current lineup.
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