Just in case anyone still doubts BMW’s commitment to electrification, a spokesman spelled it out this week in no uncertain terms.

“We are planning to have a plug-in hybrid in each and every model series,” BMW’s head of production for large vehicles, Peter Wolf, told motoring.com.au this week. “So far we have the 3, 5 and 7 Series as full hybrids, and at the other end of the bookshelf the i3 and the i8. We are planning to work on that with the X5 eDrive, but at this stage, the plug-in is a completely new concept, and the battery is very specific [to the X5].”

BMW showed off the X5 eDrive concept at the recent Frankfurt motor show, and officially launched it this week. The large SAV (not an SUV, mind you) has an intelligent all-wheel-drive system, a four-cylinder gas engine, a 70 kW electric motor and a 19-mile electric range.

Wolf said that the X5 eDrive is close to production-ready, but wouldn’t give an actual date: “We can’t tell [you] anything about what is the start of production, but we are working on such a concept [and] we are very far [along]. But it’s not a part of next year.”                    

Source: motoring.com.au