BMW has revealed that the i4 is set to enter the
market in 2021, with the announcement being made by BMW chairman Harald Kruger
at the Paris Motor Show. Back in March, the automaker had officially confirmed
in Geneva that the i Vision Dynamics concept shown in Frankfurt last year was
set to make it into series production and that the electric sedan would be
known as the i4.
When it arrives, the i4 will be the company’s fifth
fully-electric offering, after the i3 (which has just been updated with a new
120 Ah battery) and the MINI Electric arriving in 2019 as well as the iX3, the
all-electric version of the X3, and the series production version of the Vision
iNEXT, which are due in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
The i Vision Dynamics is styled along four-door Gran
Coupe lines, similar to the 4 Series Gran Coupe and 6 Series Gran Coupe, and
features an electric powertrain offering the vehicle a 600 km operating range
on a single charge. Other performance figures include a 0-100 km/h time of four
seconds and a top speed of 200 km/h.
The study also showcased the automaker’s next-gen
battery technology that will begin appearing in its various plug-in hybrid and
electric vehicles from around 2020. No timeframe for the i4’s entry into the
market was announced, but the company is set to deploy a number of models ahead
of it.
BMW still hasn’t revealed any tech details about the
i4, but the car should feature the automaker’s fifth-generation electric tech,
which will offer among other things a choice of three modular battery kits with
varying capacities, ranging from 60 kWh (approximately 450 km range) and 90 kWh
(approximately 550 km range) to 120 kWh (approximately 700 km range).
The i4 will be one of the 12 pure electric models in
Munich’s 25-model electrified line-up it plans to have in place by 2025. The
company also announced in Paris that it had sold more than 100,000 electrified
vehicles worldwide this year, and currently has over 300,000 electric vehicles
and plug-in-hybrids on the road.
