How BMW stole Australia’s premium electric vehicle market from Audi and Mercedes-Benz | Analysis
Amid all the doom and Boomer gloom about EV sales (as I’ve mentioned before, a shocking proportion of Boomers/Old People seem to be scared and angered by electric cars), I was stunned to learn recently that BMW buyers, and their close relatives in the Mini market, are snapping them up at an incredible rate.
In February this year, almost one in three BMWs sold in Australia were BEVs (29 per cent), and that percentage is excepted to be even higher in the coming months, according to Brendan Michel, BMW Australia’s head of product and market planning.
Perhaps even more remarkably, 48 per cent of those BEV buyers came to BMW from another brand. It’s as if there’s this whole swathe of people who want a properly engineered, classy EV, but don’t want a Tesla.
At Mini, the percentage of BEVs is even higher, pushing as high as 38 per cent depending on the month.
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Perhaps even more remarkably, I’d wager at least some of these BMW BEV buyers are Boomers. At the very least, they’ve got to be cashed up, because BMW certainly isn’t going after the entry-level, sub-$50,000 EV market.
According to the EV Council, the overall percentage of car sales that were EVs (and PHEVs) in 2024 was pushing towards 10 per cent (9.65, up from 8.45 in 2023).
This seems like good news, then, until you ask Audi – notionally one of the companies that has blazed the trail for EV adoption in Australia – how its BEV sales are tracking. In 2024, just four per cent of Audi’s total sales were BEVs. Yes, FOUR.
“Confirming in 2024 we sold approximately 620 full BEVs, noting that the range was quite ’boutique’ between Q8 e-tron, SQ8 e-tron, and e-tron GT, until Q4 and Q6 joined us very late in December,” a spokesperson told me.
Clearly, the hope is that Q4 and Q6 will kick those EV sales into overdrive, but the gap to BMW would have to be concerning. Audi did point out that 43 per cent of those very few people who did buy a BEV from them had also come to Audi from different brands.
Over at Mercedes-Benz, the percentage of its fleet that were full BEVs in 2024 was 13.5 per cent “but 15 per cent is closer to reality because we didn’t have EQA stock last year, which is our volume car”, a spokesperson added.
I must admit I was a little surprised to learn just how well BMW was doing when it comes to EV adoption, and even more so when I discovered that its biggest-selling car globally, as of 2024, is the BMW i4 M50 – quite possibly my favourite EV personally as a driver’s car – and that that was the third year in a row that it was its best seller.
When I asked Mr Michel how his company was achieving this, while other companies struggle, he said he would like to put it down to a combination of planning, pricing and a strong dealer network.
“The fact is that BEV sales have exceeded even our own expectations, but it’s not an accident because we put together a little strategy two years ago, and that was to get as many cars positioned as possible below that LCT and FBT thresholds in Australia,” he explained.
“We saw an opportunity, we got the green light to do it, and here we are, three out of every 10 BMWs is now a BEV.”
The Luxury Car Tax (LCT) threshold for fuel-efficient vehicles currently sits at $91,387.
Ask Audi Australia why it’s not been kicking quite as many EV goals as BMW, and it comes down to that price point issue. “We started with the top models, the most expensive ones, and we’re confident that things will change now that we have the Q4 in market, which is under the LCT, that’s our first offering in that price bracket and it will make a big difference.”
The Audi Q4 is priced at $84,900, and Audi will be hoping that by this time next year it pushes its percentage of sales that are BEVs at least into double figures. Or perhaps even as high as the overall Australian market.
*Luxury, not premium.
C’mon Sam give us a bit more than that.