BMW: One Million FWD Cars By 2015

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

While the autoblogosphere frets bout whether BMW drivers can tell which wheels drive their cars, the real news in the BMW-goes-FWD storyline is the impact that the sea change in brand strategy is expected to have on volume. Automotive News [sub] reports that BMW is developing a new family of modular gas and diesel engines, which are intended “primarily for BMW’s new front-wheel-drive architecture, but the powerplants also will be used in the automaker’s rear-wheel-drive cars,” according to CEO Norbert Reithofer. And the volume at which this new family of three, four and six-cylinder engines will be produced is one of the early indications of where BMW is going with its FWD expansion. Today, BMW sells just under 1.3m vehicles worldwide. That’s fewer cars than will be powered by this new family of engines alone, which Reithofer says will motivate 1.5m vehicles worldwide. Considering BMW’s goal is to sell 2m vehicles of all its brands by 2020, it’s clear that much of that growth will be made possible by new FWD-inclusive drivetrain technology.


According to Reithofer, 700,000 to 1 million cars per year will be built on the firm’s new FWD platform by 2014 or 2015. By contrast, BMW currently sells about 400,000 small and compact cars annually, which includes the FWD MINI and the RWD 1 Series. Furthermore, it took eight years, between 2001 and June of 2009, to produce 1.5m MINI-branded vehicles. MINI’s best sales year was 2008, when it sold about 230,000 cars. BMW’s 1-series has performed similarly, selling 225,000 units in 2008 and 217,000 in 2009 [ full BMW 2009 report in PDF format here]. Clearly BMW is going to need more than one new model to make serious inroads towards its hugely ambitious goal.

Currently, Reithofer is keeping his cards fairly close to his chest. A new MINI is due in 2014 and the “BMW 0 Series” FWD model will debut shortly thereafter, positioned under the RWD 1 Series. From there, it’s anyone’s guess. Or, as Reithofer puts it, BMW can’t spill the beans “because then [VW CEO Martin] Winterkorn knows it as well.” After all, the 3800mm to 4300mm size bracket for this new platform puts it squarely in Volkswagen Golf territory, and nobody wants to compete there with a single model. The Golf is based based on a modular platform, similar in concept to BMW’s, but between its many brands and bodystyles, Volkswagen plans to build no fewer than 60 variants of the MQB (Golf) platform.

In short, BMW is planning on running right into the buzzsaw that is the most competitive segment in Europe. Of course, there’s not much choice involved in the decision, because steep ramp-ups in European emissions standards will make BMW’s current business model largely impracticable. Meanwhile, faced with the same pressure, Mercedes will be launching a similar FWD volume-grab based on platforms and technology that will emerge from ongoing talks with Renault/Nissan. Audi has already moved to downsize with its new A1, and with sales and perception momentum as well as VW’s platform synergies behind it, Ingolstadt has already stolen the march on BMW. Which means the market for premium (or not) front-drive compact cars is going to be white-hot within the next few years.

BMW is increasingly an anomaly within the auto business: a privately-owned, independent manufacturer that is not quite a focused niche player and yet also isn’t prepared to compete in the scary world of true volume automaking. With emissions standards nipping at its heels, and with growth a necessary constant for industry success, BMW has little choice but to commit to a full-on, mass-market transformation. Whether BMW can perform this shift while keeping its all-important brand equity intact is a huge open question, and one that will be answered by the firm’s execution from here on out.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • A is A A is A on Mar 24, 2010

    "They want to go down-market, but something above MINI brand. Why not Goggomobil or better yet, Glas, as a brand?" The 1959 Mini was designed to get out of the road bubblecars as the Goggo or the Glas. "In a word, the Mini was conceived in response to a crisis... Due to the Middle East crisis, petrol rationing returned to the UK in December 1956 and people began to clamour for more economical means of travel. The sales of 900-1000cc cars quadrupled in the period from 1956 to 1957, while car sales in the wider market slumped. German bubble cars began to appear on these shores, and although they may have been awful to drive, with questionable safety, they did achieve more than 40 miles per gallon, which was the most important statistic a car could boast in those petrol-starved times...In a parallel response to Herbert Austin’s disgust at the proliferation of motorcycle/sidecar combinations on UK roads thirty-five years previously, Leonard Lord viewed the popularity of bubble cars with the same distaste. As Lord informed Issigonis in March 1957, “God damn these bloody awful bubble cars. We must drive them off the streets by designing a proper small car” http://www.aronline.co.uk/index.htm?ado15story1f.htm The Mini brand is several notches ABOVE Goggo or Glas in the mind of that 0.5% of humankind who know/care what "Goggo" and "Glas" meant 60 years ago (i.e., the Tata Nanos of the 1950s).

  • Jerome10 Jerome10 on Mar 25, 2010

    And BMW has just become "every other car company on the planet..." BAH.

  • CanadaCraig You can just imagine how quickly the tires are going to wear out on a 5,800 lbs AWD 2024 Dodge Charger.
  • Luke42 I tried FSD for a month in December 2022 on my Model Y and wasn’t impressed.The building-blocks were amazing but sum of the all of those amazing parts was about as useful as Honda Sensing in terms of reducing the driver’s workload.I have a list of fixes I need to see in Autopilot before I blow another $200 renting FSD. But I will try it for free for a month.I would love it if FSD v12 lived up to the hype and my mind were changed. But I have no reason to believe I might be wrong at this point, based on the reviews I’ve read so far. [shrug]. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it once I get to test it.
  • FormerFF We bought three new and one used car last year, so we won't be visiting any showrooms this year unless a meteor hits one of them. Sorry to hear that Mini has terminated the manual transmission, a Mini could be a fun car to drive with a stick.It appears that 2025 is going to see a significant decrease in the number of models that can be had with a stick. The used car we bought is a Mk 7 GTI with a six speed manual, and my younger daughter and I are enjoying it quite a lot. We'll be hanging on to it for many years.
  • Oberkanone Where is the value here? Magna is assembling the vehicles. The IP is not novel. Just buy the IP at bankruptcy stage for next to nothing.
  • Jalop1991 what, no Turbo trim?
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