For BMW, as for all manufacturers, The medium-term goal is to make the electric car more affordable. We recently saw this on the side of Volkswagen, which intends to offer from 2025 an electric city car starting at €25,000. The same story with Renault, with the electric R5, the price of which will be almost identical to the German one.

As far as premium manufacturers are concerned, electrics are still reserved for “big” cars. Mercedes does offer the EQA, which is a sort of “small” electric SUV, but with a base price of over €50,000, you can’t say it’s an affordable model, especially compared to the real thing. A and its base price is 38,000 euros.

The opposite strategy

At BMW, until the electric 1 Series arrives, which should allow prices to drop, the electric entry level is reserved for the BMW i4 eDrive35, which starts at €57,550. This price was supposed to match the most formidable competitor, the Tesla Model 3, but at the beginning of the year, the American firm got everyone off the wrong foot by sharply reducing the price list.

In any case, even in premium, Car prices are expected to fall in the coming years. But to achieve this, BMW does not intend to adopt the same strategy as others. Indeed, while some brands take on raw material extraction to control much of their production process, the Munich-based company sees things a little differently. In effect, BMW plans to rely on recycling batteries and raw materials to lower costs for its cars.

“We don’t think it’s good to invest in mining”explains Nicolas Peter, BMW’s chief financial officer, during an interview with Automotive News, “We think it’s more important to get raw materials from cars and other products”.

The German firm has already laid the foundations for this small internal revolution. In particular, it opened an R&D center in Germany and a recycling plant in China with battery giant CATL. BMW will also invest in technologies that require fewer minerals, such as hydrogen.

What are other manufacturers doing?

That strategy appears to be going against the grain of competition, starting with Tesla, which plans to buy Brazilian lithium mining company Sigla Lithium for three billion euros. The American firm has also been eyeing the giant Glencore for several months, a large Anglo-Swiss company specializing in trading, brokerage and raw material extraction.

For their part, Mercedes and Volkswagen also do things differently. In Wolfsburg, we have just announced an initial investment in the mining industry, while in Stuttgart, together with Volkswagen, we are also making our mark on the Canadian side by participating in certain companies specializing in the mining industry.