BMW chairman Norbert Reithofer said he expects the group to grow faster than the market as a whole in 2012 with Mini and Rolls-Royce achieving new sales records.
He told the group’s annual accounts press conference in Munich on Tuesday (13 March): “We are starting the new year with a full order book and a highly attractive model range.
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“An important driver for growth will be the new 3 series and other new and revised models will also be launched in 2012 including 6 series Gran Coupe in June, the first four-door coupe in the company’s history. We will also see a revised 7 series in July.”
A day after equally bullish comments by Volkswagen Group at its annual conference, Reithofer added that BMW is targeting new highs in sales and pre-tax earnings for 2012 “providing the global economic climate does not take a turn for the worse”.
He was also keen to re-enforce the group’s environmental credentials and said its ‘Efficient Dynamics’ strategy is a success story.
“It makes our cars even more attractive and keeps their value at a high level for a long time.”
In 1995 BMW’s fleet average CO2 emissions in Europe was over 200g/km and this has now come down to 148g/km while maintaining an average power output of 173bhp across all models.
Reithofer said: “Looking ahead at 2015, the EU has set a new CO2 target of 130g/km for all European cars. We are totally confident we will meet the target. Our ActiveHybrid models are another step in this direction and this concept will be available on the new 3, 5 and updated 7 series.”
However, EU discussions concerning a further reduction to 95g/km average across European car fleets for 2020 present a “significant challenge”, he added.
Reithofer said: “In order to reach emissions goals in Europe and the US, we are now starting on the second phase of Efficient Dynamics and we need new technologies to complement the fleet.
“Through plug-in hybrids and electric cars, such as the i family, we will make further progress towards reducing CO2 emissions across our fleet and by 2020 we will have reduced the group fleet CO2 average by half.
“We will continue to invest in innovative drive technologies and lightweight construction.”
He added: “With the new i family we are the first company to design mobility from the ground up around an electric powertrain and they will be the first cars made of carbon fibre in series production.
“The power for the assembly of the i3 and i8 at our Leipzig plant will come from regenerative sources.”
