BMW does not want only electric cars yet: it will continue to develop diesel and gasoline engines, including six and eight cylinders

With the automobile market moving towards an electrification that seems irremediable, BMW confirms that it will continue working on the development of combustion engines, whether diesel or gasoline, and even in its most powerful versions of six and eight cylinders. The German brand ensures that the reduction of emissions in its new engines is the highest achieved to date.

This decision has been revealed by Frank Weber, a member of the BMW development board, in an interview conducted by Auto Motor and Sport. The statements are surprising due to the important bet that the brand is making for the electric car, with the launches of the BMW i4 and the BMW iX, and the decision of the European Commission to prohibit the sale of combustion cars beyond 2035.

BMW doesn’t want to leave anyone behind.

Last March, the news broke that Audi was abandoning the development of its combustion engines, in view of the look that the future European anti-pollution standard Euro 7 is taking, with a reduction that could reach some maximum limits of 10 mg/km NOx for the approval of new models and 30 mg/km for the sale of cars already on the market. Some figures that represent a significant reduction of the current maximum allowed, of 80 mg/km for gasoline cars and 60 mg/km for diesel.

This decision, which has not yet been approved, has also led Volvo to reject the development of vehicles powered by combustion engines, but has not finished convincing BMW, who assure that with their new generation of engines they are achieving results never seen before. before. “Only with the six-cylinder engine, we are reducing CO2 emissions more than ever with a generation change”.

“In 2025 there will still be many people who will not be able to drive an electric car because they do not have the necessary infrastructure. This will develop at very different speeds in individual markets. But, and this is very important to me, we will not force our clients to choose between the new and the supposedly old. Our goal is to always offer the most sustainable and innovative vehicles, regardless of the type of driving,” Weber develops when asked if the future BMW 3 Series will be fully electric.

But a fully electric BMW is still on the horizon

Although BMW will continue to develop combustion engines, electrification will gain pace over the years, until making the German firm an exclusively electric brand. Plug-in hybridization seems like an inescapable toll if maximum emission limits are to be met in the future and Weber’s words point to a sweet transition to this new paradigm.

BMW’s situation is delicate because its most staunch customers seek an extra contribution of dynamism and sensations from the brand. That is where the new BMW i4 and iX have focused. And, furthermore, where the sportier versions of the BMW 3 Series are headed. From Weber’s words it follows that the most powerful options (and, therefore, the most polluting) could be fully electrified: “With what electric machines will be able to do, you may have to imagine the next M3 in a completely different way.”

In other words, it will be the brand itself that will push its customers towards fully electric versions. But it is that, in addition, Weber assures that the stage where we see a combustion BMW and a fully electric BMW i will be short, as they will offer very similar products where the only substantial change is their propulsion technology. We are, therefore, in a transition period that, at the end, will leave a “basically electric” mark, according to Weber.