BMW Loses Core Members of BMWi Team
The Wallstreet Journal is reporting that BMW has lost several core members of its BMWi team to Future Mobility, a Chinese electric car start-up. We call them a start-up but they’re actually a well funded company backed by Tencent, a massive Chinese holding company.
Here’s the group that’s been poached:
– Carsten Breitfeld, a 20-year BMW veteran who developed the company’s i8
– Dirk Abendroth, lead developer of the electric powertrains for the i-series,
– Benoit Jacob, head of design at BMW i
– Henrik Wenders, head of BMW i product management
As the WSJ points out it comes at tough time for BMW as sales of the i range (and other electric competitors) aren’t growing as fast as anticipated. What this means for BMW future electric MINIs remains to be seen.
<p>“As the WSJ points out it comes a tough time for BMW as sales of the i
range (and other electric competitors) continue to stagnate.”
US Plug-in sales Mar. 2015: 10,341
US Plug-in sales Mar. 2016: 13,725</p>
<p>?? Those numbers seem legit, Considering the good ones are overpriced & the affordable ones don’t have enough usable range. Maybe the Chinese Knock Offs will cause BMW to offer more realistic pricing :D</p>
<p>Please. Come on now, BMW might have spent lots of money on dealer interior space that gets dedicated to the i vehicles but the sales people don’t like selling them. If you try to talk details about the i vehicles, they either no nothing useful other than what anyone can learn online, or they try to stir you towards a combustion engine tried and proven ride even if you already own regular BMW’s and MINI’s. Also, notice how BMW doesn’t offer any super charging alternative. The big car manufacturers are not really interested in going all into this technology, if they were we would see amazing rides. I mean, Elon Musk have offered the plug technology open source so any car manufacturer can use so there is a common plug system, however the old guard is not so much into open source anything.</p>
<p>IMO, EV’s will not be the car of the future. Too many challenges to have charging stations setup. If you live in an apartment or don’t own a house (especially an older place, i.e. pre-1970’s), a person will be limited to where they can charge an EV at night.</p>
<p>I believe Hydrogen powered vehicles will be the future. Easier to setup and place fueling locations – would just take the place of the current gas stations and filling up won’t take hours, unlike EV’s which currently do require at a minimum least 2 to 4 hours to charge (rapid charge)</p>