- BMW just hit an EV milestone: 2 million battery-electric cars sold.
- When you consider PHEVs too, the number jumps to 3.5 million.
- BMW says one in two X3 orders in Europe is now electric.
I’m not sure what BMW envisioned when it first launched the quirky i3 electric hatchback in 2013. At the time, EVs were far from mainstream, with only a few cars like the Nissan Leaf, the Chevy Spark (remember the Spark?!), and the Tesla Model S holding down the fort. So when the i3 came out, it felt like something new and weird and no one was sure how it was going to work out. Fast forward 13 years later and BMW just sold its two millionth EV (including electric Minis). Clearly, the Bavarians knew what they were doing.
The two-millionth battery electric vehicle to roll off BMW’s assembly line was an i5 M60 xDrive, which was built in the Dingolfing, Germany, plant and delivered to a customer in Spain. It’s one of the brand’s last-generation EVs. A new class of cars is already here to drive BMW’s next phase of growth for EVs, and things have been going pretty well so far.
Photo by: BMW
The first of BMW’s Neue Klasse EVs, the iX3, is nearing 100,000 orders, according to a recent press release. In the second quarter of 2026, BMW’s European EV sales have increased 38% to 81,445 sales, mostly thanks to iX3 orders. In the first half of 2026, BEV sales accounted for 28% of BMW’s European sales. A third of those BEV sales were iX3s. What’s more, about half of all X3 orders were iX3s too.
If you include plug-in hybrids, BMW is up to 3.5 million electrified vehicles sold. That means that more than one in every four Bimmers sold worldwide was electrified. While BMW’s U.S. EV sales have sagged this year—like they have for many other automakers—the segment has generally trended upward. BMW sold some 442,000 EVs globally last year, up slightly from the year prior.
New models could keep the momentum going. BMW has two more EVs ready to hit the market, in the i3 and the iX5. Both offer sharp new styling, the brand’s latest battery tech, and super high-tech cabins. The i3 particularly should be a massive boost to BMW’s sales for a couple of reasons. For starters, it’s a 3 Series, the brand’s bread and butter, so customers are always going to want it. It’s also the best looking Bimmer in ages. And it’ll go an estimated 440 miles on a charge.
Photo by: BMW
“The second Neue Klasse model, the BMW i3, is already seeing strong demand since orders opened ahead of its market launch,“ said Jochen Goller, BMW board member responsible for customer, brands, and sales, said in a press release.
BMW has come a long way since the original i3. At certain points in its EV journey, it seemed like it wasn’t sure what it was doing, especially since the i brand seemed dead for a little while after the i3 and i8 stopped production. Now, though, BMW’s EVs are thriving and show no signs of slowing down.
