Electric Everything: A Look into BMW’s Future

BMW wants to sell 100,000 e-bikes by 2030, but they’re not banking on any of those machines being bigger machines. 

In a recent interview with MCN’s Dan Sutherland, BMW’s Head of Product Management explains why BW isn’t in a rush to make an electric motorcycle:

“We feel at the moment that it’s not the right time to just take our bikes and stuff some electric motors in and make it look like it was before. Some brands build motorcycles like that, but they’re not super successful at the moment. We’re carefully looking into the future, so we think it’s not the time to just produce an electric motorcycle.” – Christian Pingitzer, Product Management Head, BMW (MCN)

Why is now not a good time for a bigger electric motorcycle from BMW?

Despite the present being a bad time for bigger zero-emission builds, Pingitzer still has a list of what would be needed to create the ultimate EV machine. 

Spoiler: It involves “a magic battery” with the following traits:

1. No weight
2. An acceptable price
3. An acceptable range

The drive for future lineups

Slight sarcasm aside, the main drive toward the future lies in the laps of our younger generation, who are currently the main masses interested in BMW’s CE 04 and the newer, fresher CE 02:

As it is…we’re also consulting with the younger generation. We really want to understand how the younger generation are motivated. We strongly believe that two-wheel fun and riding on motorcycles or scooters… whatever the drivetrain is… will live forever as long as we can envisage what the technical solutions are.” See also Amanda Quick· Motorcycle News ·November 13, 2024·8 min read Movement from Norton, WMC’s Range Record, Indian’s New Scout Sixty and CFMoto’s Red-Hot EICMA Duo – Christian Pingitzer, Product Management Head, BMW (MCN)

Will BMW ever tackle a larger-displacement electric bike for our markets?

The potential is there; apparently, BMW’s got some pretty good concepts going, though the company won’t likely be able to capitalize on the sketches for a handful of years yet:

“We’re working on the urban mobility more, but…as we all know, the tech is expensive, it is very heavy, we don’t have proper range to get a good power output… It would be super smart to go into e-fuels as soon as possible, or synthetic fuels, to get rid of the emissions that we have at the moment with all of the range.” – Christian Pingitzer, Product Management Head, BMW (MCN)

What do you think of BMW’s ideas for the future?

*All media provided by BMW*