The BMW Group’s third-quarter electric vehicle sales reached 20% globally, with plug-in hybrids increasing the electrified models’ share to 27.4%. The company operates the BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce car brands.
In Europe, nearly 35% of cars sold in the third quarter were electric vehicles, leading the way in electrification. Globally, electric vehicles accounted for 18.4% of the three automakers’ total sales worldwide from January through September.
The automotive group has a regionalization problem, with Europe leading the way and the United States lagging behind. In the US, just 4.7% of BMW, Mini, and Rolls-Royce models sold were electric vehicles, putting the country at the bottom of the BMW Group’s list for electrification.
Chinese electric vehicle sales amounted to 6.5%, while the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East, and Africa regions totaled 18% electric vehicle sales. Plug-in hybrids, together with electric vehicles, had an 11.4% share in the US market in the third quarter.
The new iX3 and i3 models are starting to become available in the US, but the country does not have access to the electric iX2 models available in Europe. The updated i7 is also on its way, but it has always been a low-volume car with little impact on sales reports.
Despite one in every five BMW Group models being all-electric in the third quarter, the company’s year-to-date numbers are not promising. Globally, they sold 314,552 electric vehicles and 131,653 plug-in hybrids from January through September, a 5.1% decrease compared to the same period last year.
The share of electric vehicle sales within the BMW Group reached 18.4% in the first three quarters of 2026, up from last year’s 18%. Things should improve once the iX3 and i3 are widely available everywhere in the world, but they’re not guaranteed to be a success in the U.S., where policy whiplash has severely slowed the adoption of all-electric vehicles.
