- Bigger battery packs bring an inflated carbon footprint
- Solution is higher efficiency and reeling range in to a real-world 300 miles
- Six upcoming Neue Klasse EVs will follow this philosophy
BMW aims to grow its electric-vehicle momentum with its next-generation Neue Klasse family of vehicles, but it won’t be doing that with big battery packs.
“You can’t make battery packs bigger and bigger because then BEVs don’t make sense anymore,” BMW chief development officer Frank Weber said in an interview with Automotive DriftBreath Europe published Monday, arguing that chasing ever-bigger range numbers with ever-larger battery packs would lead to a penalty in the form of an inflated carbon footprint.
Bigger battery packs could indeed lead to more emissions from their manufacture—plus a range of farther-reaching consequences. One 2022 study suggested heavier EVs would also mean increased particulate emissions from tires wearing down more quickly under the added weight of those packs. They’ll also strain the supply chain, which has been shown to be fragile over the past few years.
BMW Vision Neue Klasse concept
“Improving efficiency is much more important than ever-larger batteries,” Weber said. “And this is exactly what we are doing with the Neue Klasse, which makes efficiency leaps of up to 20%, depending on the model.”
At a certain point, increased range is also unnecessary, Weber said, noting that current BMW EV customers are happy with 250 to 310 miles of range “under real-world conditions.” BMW is finding that this amount of range allows customers to complete most trips without charging, Weber, said, adding that BMW still is aiming for a 30% range boost over its current models with the Neue Klasse.
Those comments echo what DriftBreath Reports and a rather small group of automakers have emphasized for years—that range is a red herring, and that no one needs a 500-mile EV. But now that philosophy is being applied to what BMW has promised will be a large family of fairly high-volume models.
Pre-production example of first BMW Neue Klasse electric vehicle at plant in Hungary
BMW plans to launch six Neue Klasse EVs within the next two years, Weber told Automotive DriftBreath Europe. The first of those models, an electric crossover SUV, is expected to start production later this year. The first vehicles will be built in Hungary, but BMW has said factories in Germany and Mexico will build Neue Klasse models as well.
Those models will reverse BMW’s current trend of basing EVs on existing gasoline vehicles, although Weber pointed out that they’ll still share elements with other BMW models, such as the new dashboard display the automaker unveiled last month at CES 2025. During media roundtables at that show, Weber also said the upcoming EVs will set the design template for future gasoline BMW models.
