BMW says China could take the lead in electric cars

Mr Ian Robertson, Board Member of BMW (Sales & Marketing), believes China could steal a march over other countries in electric cars.

“The Chinese Government is putting enormous money into R&D and academic institutions. Clearly, this could be a technological leapfrog they could benefit from. When the time comes, and it could be a relatively short period, Chinese regulations will advance this (electric car) agenda quicker than what could be perceived at the moment,” he told Business Line during the unveiling of the BMW i3 and i8 electric car concepts in Frankfurt recently.

In contrast, India is way behind even though a handful of manufacturers have been talking of electric vehicle options. Infrastructure, in terms of charging points, is often cited as the biggest limiting factor but Mr Robertson did not agree with this view.

“I think the issue of infrastructure is a bit of a red-herring. The ability to turn a power source into a delivery for electricity is not that difficult. It is a function of demand and there are plenty of companies which will rapidly respond to this need,” he said.

Mr Robertson also referred to the experience of the BMW Mini E (the demonstration electric car and part of project ‘i') where the 700-plus customers initially interviewed said they wanted charging points at convenient locations such as supermarkets and gyms.

Even though a number of municipal charging points were provided, these were hardly used as people preferred their own cables at home for reasons of hygiene.   

According to Mr Robertson, the next decade could see ‘greater volatility' in the car industry than what has been experienced over the last 100 years in terms of more change in processes, technology and the way the industry behaves.

The global economic situation is also more challenging than what it has been to be able to predict what will happen. “The agenda for a car company, therefore, needs to be based on flexible response to the way customers behave, to what is happening on the global economic situation and to what governments are going to do,” he said.

During the last 100 years, the standard approach of building and selling cars comprised stamping metal, welding, painting and financing. Today, cars like the BMW i3 and i8 do not have many of those elements. There is no press/welding shop and very little of the paint shop.

Challenges

Companies will also need to look at ways of providing mobility to customers that do not necessarily fit the normal model. BMW, for instance, established ‘Drive Now' (where cars are hired and dropped off wherever the end-user wants) some months ago keeping in mind that living in cities posed its own set of complexities.

“One of the biggest challenges is that people feel less able to have a parking space, to be able to look after a car on their own, to get insurance and so on,” Mr Robertson said.

It is here that an initiative like ‘Drive Now' provides mobility when someone wants it over a relatively short period of time. It has been a huge success in Munich (where it was launched) and plans are under way to take it to Berlin and across Europe.

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