BMW 2022 sales fall 4.8%; BEV sales more than double

BMW Group delivered 2.4 million units in 2022, down 4.8% year on year due to supply bottlenecks, China’s pandemic lockdowns and the Russia-Ukraine war, the German automaker said Jan. 10.

The fall was mainly seen in the first half of 2022, with total sales for the fourth quarter rising 10.6% on the year to 651,798 units.

BMW continued to ramp up electromobility sales in 2022, with battery electric vehicle sales more than doubling to 215,755 units and the company delivering its 500,000th BEV before the end of the year.

Combined deliveries of BEVs and plug-in hybrid EVs rose 32% year on year to 433,795 units in 2022.

“Our strong product line-up is the best response to a challenging environment – and enabled us to more than double our sales of fully-electric vehicles again in 2022,” BMW board member responsible for Customer, Brands, Sales Pieter Nota said.

The company’s focus in 2023 would be to continue to ramp up electromobility, with it aiming for 15% of total sales to be BEVs, up from 9% in 2022, Nota said.

Of the 2022 deliveries, BMW models totaled 2.1 million units, down 5.1%, while Mini models totaled 292,923 units, down 3%, and Rolls-Royce models totaled 6,021 units, up 7.8% to the highest full-year sales in its 118-year history.

Increased EV demand has been one factor keeping lithium prices strong.

Platts, part of S&P Global Commodity Insights, assessed seaborne lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide at $74,200/mt CIF North Asia and $80,900/mt CIF North Asia Jan. 10, up 119.5% and 155.2%, respectively, since the start of 2022.

European deliveries fall

The BMW Group’s deliveries of BMW and Mini vehicles to Europe totaled 877,369 units in 2022, down 7.5% year on year, with sales to Germany at 252,087 units, down 6%, according to provisional registration figures.

In the Americas, BMW’s full-year sales were 439,585 units, down 2.3% on the year, with US deliveries edging 1.3% lower on the year to 361,892 units.

Asia’s 2022 deliveries dropped 3.5% year on year to 1.03 million vehicles, of which 791,985 were in China, down 6.4%.

— Jacqueline Holman