BMW WISE TO COVER ALL BASES

The mighty 7 Series is a car as future-proofed and globally friendly as it is possible to imagine.

The recent commodities boom has left car makers concerned about the future price of batteries and the supply of materials. Some analysts predict that pack costs could spiral upwards over the next two years.

That’s bad news if your business is based on pure-evs. But the 7 Series’ new architecture is able to shape-shift as the market demand changes.

BMW executives at the 7 Series unveiling were a little more confident in saying the quiet part out loud: some customers will not want to buy a pure-ev. The diesel 7 Series has a range of 745 miles on one tank, they said, and the tank on the PHEV models is nearly as capacious as on the pure-ice models.

BMW isn’t a company giving up on combustion. And with a battery supply crisis blowing up on the horizon, the huge effort and investment put into the new 7 Series might prove to be an extremely savvy move.