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German luxury carmaker, the BMW Group, on Thursday launched i4, the most affordable luxury electric car in India at ₹70 lakh (introductory price). It will be a completely built unit (CBU).
This will be comparatively cheaper than EVs of other luxury brands such as Audi (eTron), Jaguar (i Pace) and Mercedes-Benz’s (EQC) launched in India so far, which are priced above ₹1 crore, but have similar specifications and but lesser range limit.
Powered by 83.9 kWh battery, the i4 has a range of 590 kilometres (on a single charge and longest range EV in India till now), and has instant acceleration of 0-100 in 5.7 seconds, the company said.
“It is priced based on the segment it belongs to. This is first ever electric mid-size sedan in the country, and is priced as per the segment it belongs to. The pricing strategy, packaging strategy of the overall product is in line with the segment that we are providing to customers. At the moment, this is not a volume driver, but it has the potential to be a sizeable portion of our portfolio, the volumes will dramatically grow over next three years,” Vikram Pawah, President, BMW Group India, told BusinessLine.
Speaking on the sidelines of the launch, he said, as BMW accelerates its electrification journey in India with a widest range of product portfolio, the company was expecting EV sales to account for over 10 per cent of its total car sales in India by next year.
Since December, BMW Group India has launched three EVs till now as per its announcement to launch in November (three products in six months). It has already launched its technology flagship all-electric SUV iX and all-electric Mini SE luxury hatchback.
When asked whether the company would assemble these in EVs as a completely knocked-down unit (CKD) or local production, Pawah said, “Local production requires the supply chain , policy framework and volumes to be stable as well. Electric is an early stage and technology is evolving. For instance, this (i4) is the fifth-generation e-drive technology and we have been working on electro mobility for last 10 years, now, we are just working on sixth generation. So all these things need to fall in place for the entire local production.”
He added that the demand size is encouraging which is what the company requires right now.
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