MUNICH — BMW expects to sell more light vehicles in China this year despite a local price war in the electric vehicle segment, and muted demand overall, the luxury carmaker’s CFO said at the IAA car show in Munich.
In his first interview since becoming finance chief in May, Walter Mertl told Reuters that BMW had been able to grow 3.7 percent in China in the first half, faster than the world’s top auto market as a whole, and expected this trend to continue.
“We are assuming, and we are seeing this at the moment, that we will sell more this year than last year,” Mertl said with regard to China, adding that the price war was predominantly affecting less expensive segments of the auto market, where BMW is not active.
China’s passenger vehicle sales fell for a second month in July, as discounts and government support measures failed to lure consumers wary of buying cars amid a sputtering economy and a prolonged slump in the housing market.
Price cuts by Tesla in early 2023 have spread to numerous brands in China, with General Motors and Volkswagen Group joining a fresh round of cuts in the summer.
BMW recently raised its 2023 outlook for group vehicle sales and said it expects solid growth, which is defined as anywhere between 5 percent and 9.9 percent. In 2022, vehicles sales had declined by 4.8 percent to around 2.4 million; in China, they were down 6.4 percent to 791,985.
Mertl said that the phase-out of grants to boost electric vehicles in Germany would cause a temporary drop in demand. “But afterwards things will continue as normal.”
BMW, which on Saturday released details about its new electric platform “Neue Klasse”, plans to raise the share of EVs in total vehicles sold to 15 percent in 2023 and 20 percent in 2024, from around 9 percent in 2022.