BMW May Anger Many Drivers With Controversial Move

The president of the Supervisory Board of BMW, Nicholas Peter, proposed stricter measures for the owners of plug-in hybrids who rarely charge their cars with electricity.

In an interview with the German newspaper Die Zeit, the former financial director of BMW said that in the future, manufacturers could not only monitor the charging habits of their customers but also technically punish them.

Peter cited as an example the ability for the car to automatically reduce engine power to drivers who never plug the vehicle into a charger.

The idea is aimed at owners of plug-in hybrids who use government incentives for such cars but in practice drive them almost exclusively on a gasoline engine. Such models are conceived as a combination of electric and classic driving, but some customers, according to Peter, completely ignore the electric part of the system.

The head of BMW’s supervisory board once again criticized the European Union’s plan to phase out cars with internal combustion engines.

In his opinion, the market is not ready for an all-electric future by 2035. Peter believes that the ban could cause a large increase in demand for petrol before the expiry of the deadline, followed by a sharp decline in the market and serious job losses.

He also commented with reservations on the latest proposal of the European Commission, according to which 90 percent of new vehicles should be electric. He called it a ‘Trojan horse’ because, according to his interpretation, official and rental cars would practically have to be exclusively electric.

Peter estimates that by 2035, roughly half of buyers will want an electric car, while he believes that full electrification of the market is unrealistic until then. Even the goal of 90 percent electric vehicles, he claims, will be difficult to achieve, according to the current development of demand.

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