The skeptics within BMW, those that question the merit of electrification and downsizing, and that define rear-wheel drive and straight-six engines as the core of the brand, seem to be losing out. Their cars still exist, but direction initiated by former CEO and current advisory board chief Norbert Reithofer is clear: For the next decade, BMW is expecting massive changes on the global automotive market, and the models will change accordingly.

BMW has identified two areas of focus: Lowering fuel consumption and emissions?and the digitalization of the driving experience, including car-sharing, “accident-free” driving, new user interfaces, and the car as part of a “digital ecosystem.”
The exorbitantly expensive launch of the i sub-brand and the i3 battery-electric vehicle, as well as the i8 plug-in hybrid, were clear signs that BMW is dead serious about tackling the future?as seen by the company’s visionaries. Both models were developed with great autonomy, by teams that took radically new and often costly approaches such as the carbon-fiber structure of the i models that “we would never be able to use for an M model,” as a company executive told us.
While the i8 is selling at least as well as planned, the i3 is lagging significantly behind the internal projections. But these models are not an end in themselves: They are paving the way for a much larger family of plug-in hybrids that the company needs to meet ever-more-strict emiss...