BMW has announced that it issued $10 billion in new battery cell contracts in order to secure supply for its upcoming electric cars.
After not launching any new all-electric vehicles in seven years since the launch of the BMW i3, BMW is about to launch three new ones in the next two years.
The BMW iX3, an all-electric SUV, is due to go on sale next year and the BMW i4, an all-electric sedan, and the BMW iNEXT, an all-electric crossover, are being brought to market in 2021.
Those new vehicles are all based on BMW’s upcoming fifth-generation electric powertrain.
The German automaker plans to make the vehicles in high volume and it is going to need a lot of battery cells to make it happen.
The bulk of the new volume is coming from CATL, a giant Chinese battery manufacturer who is also building a new factory in Germany.
BMW wrote about the new agreement with CATL: “The original CATL order volume of four billion euros announced in mid-2018 will now be increased to 7.3 billion euros (contract duration from 2020 to 2031), with 4.5 billion euros for the BMW Group and 2.8 billion euros for the Chinese production site of the BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. (BBA) joint venture in Shenyang. The BMW Group is the first customer of the CATL battery cell plant currently under construction in Erfurt, Germany.”
