The automotive landscape has changed a lot since BMW first started manufacturing vehicles. BMW knows it – at least if their wild new design language and rapid adoption of electrification is any indication. Change is clearly vital to – if not heavily ingrained in – the automaker’s DNA. And that got me thinking – could a BMW EV pickup be closer than we think? With the electric automotive event horizon rapidly encroaching, I think it may be more imminent than ever.
The strongest case anyone needs to do anything in business is money. While the pickup truck market has always been solid in the United States, it admittedly makes less sense on the global stage. However, that’s changed drastically over the last few years. The success of vehicles like the Rivian R1T, Ford Lightning, and GMC Hummer EV has cemented the EV pickup segment as a large and profitable one. Need proof? A Silverado EV and the funky Canoo pickup truck are all planned to show up to the party in 2023, and a Tesla Cybertruck may, against all odds, eventually find itself in production.
Finally, however improbable, it’s not unrealistic to suppose the existence of an EV Mercedes X-Class-derived pickup truck somewhere in that fabled Mercedes-Benz vault. Though the ill-fated X-Class is now out of production, in September of 2022, Mercedes partnered with Rivian to aid in producing electric vans. Who knows what kind of pillow talk is going on there? Probably nothing, right? Either way, the market has never been more ready for a BMW pickup truck, especially an electric-powered one.
Any long-time BMW fan will probably immediately recall the suspiciously production-ready-looking BMW X7 pickup that made its rounds on the internet in 2019. And there’s the famous E30 M3 pickup truck that ran around BMW HQ for decades before being finally retired. Not to mention the E92 pickup April Fools joke or the fact that new render pops up once or twice a year somewhere on the internet.
The concept has already become something familiar to many people – it’s not as alien a thought as…
