The i Vision Dee is grabbing all the headlines following its unveiling at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show. Away from Las Vegas where the Neue Klasse-previewing electric concept is being exhibited, BMW USA has released sales data for the fourth quarter of last year and the entire 2022. Although deliveries were up by 9.4% in the last quarter compared to Q4 2021, the luxury brand ended the year with an overall decline of 1.3%.
During the previous 12 months, the core BMW brand shipped 332,388 vehicles to customers in the United States. In the same period of 2021, the automaker managed to deliver 336,644 units. The slight drop stems from lower demand for regular cars as people actually bought 15.7% more SUVs (aka “light trucks”) than before, at 208,015 compared to 179,840. Sales of passenger cars dropped by 20.7% from 156,804 to 124,373 units. The SUVs made in South Carolina at the Spartanburg plant accounted for a little over 60% of total US sales.
As far as fully electric vehicles are concerned, BMW USA shipped 15,584 cars without a combustion engine in 2022. That represents around 4.7% of the total volume for last year. In the fourth quarter alone, sales of “i”-badged cars amounted to 8,689 EVs. The i7 didn’t contribute much to the total numbers since the fullsize electric sedan went on sale at the end of November.
For the full year 2022, MINI sales in the US went down by 1.4% to 29,504 units, despite a strong fourth quarter during which deliveries rose by 31.3% to 10,319.
In related news, BMW USA says the Spartanburg factory registered its second-highest annual output last year when it added the XM plug-in hybrid SUV to the assembly line. As a refresher, the company will be investing $1 billion at the SC plant to build at least six electric SUVs on the Neue Klasse platform by the end of the decade.
| Q4 2022 |
Q4 2021 | % | TOT 2022 |
TOT 2021 |
% | |
| BMW passenger cars | 40,396 | 38,981 | 3.6% | 124,373 | 156,804 | – 20.7% |
| BMW light trucks | 61,342 | 54,050 | 13.5% | 208,015 | 179,840 | 15.7% |
| TOTAL BMW | 101,738 | 93,031 | 9.4% | 332,388 | 336,644 | -1.3% |
| TOTAL MINI | 10,319 | 7,860 | 31.3% | 29,504 | 29,930 | -1.4% |
Source: BMW USA
