BMW’s sales release leads with growth in Europe and the US, and both gains are real. What it doesn’t do is subtract. BMW Group delivered 110,257 fully electric vehicles worldwide in the third quarter, up 7.2%, and 81,941 of them went to Europe, up 37.5%. Take Europe out and the rest of the world took 28,316 battery-electric vehicles, down from roughly 43,300 a year earlier. That is a drop of about 35%, or close to 15,000 cars, by The Auto Wire’s arithmetic on BMW’s published figures. The group as a whole delivered 551,072 cars in the quarter, down 6.3%.
What BMW reported for July through September
Europe came in at 235,628 deliveries, up 2.7%. The Americas region was up 2.6% at 129,190, and the US, at 106,741, was up 2.5%. Germany, counted by provisional registrations, rose 2.1% to 74,697. On the other side, the China sales region delivered 114,355 cars, down 24.8%, and the region BMW labels Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa fell 10.8% to 70,830. By brand, BMW delivered 479,291 (-6.8%), MINI 70,712 (-2.4%) and Rolls-Royce 1,069 (-18.0%). BMW says all of these figures are provisional until its 2026 Group Report is published. Jochen Goller, the board member for sales, credited the new iX3 and the Neue Klasse product wave for holding BMW’s position in Europe and the US.
Europe’s electric gain came mostly out of other BMWs
Working back from BMW’s percentages, Europe’s total deliveries rose by about 6,200 cars in the quarter, while battery-electric deliveries there rose by about 22,300, from roughly 59,600 to 81,941. That leaves deliveries of everything else in Europe, meaning combustion cars and plug-in hybrids together, at 153,687, down from about 169,800. It is a drop of roughly 16,000 cars, or 9.5%. BMW does not split that group further, so the release cannot say how much of the loss is gasoline and diesel versus plug-ins.
In plain terms: Europe’s EV growth came largely out of BMW’s own showroom. A buyer who might have signed for a combustion X3 or a plug-in got an iX3 instead, and BMW’s European volume barely moved. Battery-electric cars made up 34.7% of BMW Group deliveries in Europe in the quarter, against about 28% for the first half, according to BMW’s August release. That release also put second-quarter European battery-electric deliveries at 81,445. The third quarter’s 81,941 is only 496 cars higher, so the quarterly run rate has been flat since spring even though the year-over-year gain stayed near 38%. BMW also says the iX3 passed 100,000 European orders in its first year. Orders are not deliveries, and the quarter’s European total covers every electric BMW and MINI, not just the iX3.
Electric deliveries outside Europe fell by a third
Worldwide battery-electric deliveries slipped from 116,807 in the second quarter, according to BMW’s July release, to 110,257 in the third. BMW’s global release does not break out electric sales by market outside Europe, so the cause of the roughly 15,000-car decline is not stated there. The US figures offer one piece. BMW of North America reported that its combined battery-electric and plug-in hybrid sales fell 24.9% in the quarter while plug-in hybrid sales rose 23.2%. Both can only be true if battery-electric sales fell by more than 24.9%. The US arm blamed market conditions and a planned model changeover, and said deliveries of preordered iX3 and new i7 models have only started to count toward battery-electric sales. It gave no separate battery-electric number.
China is larger than the whole shortfall
The China region lost about 37,700 deliveries against last year’s third quarter. The group’s entire shortfall was about 37,100. Europe and the Americas together added roughly 9,500, and the Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa group took away roughly 8,600. BMW says the China decline of 21.8% for the first nine months, 376,128 cars, mirrors the market as a whole, and that the China version of the new iX3 does not start rolling out there until November. The Neue Klasse’s first quarter on sale in BMW’s weakest region is the fourth quarter.
For US buyers, the growth is in SUVs. BMW of North America’s nine-month figures show BMW-brand light trucks up 8.4% to 159,845 and passenger cars down 0.4% to 127,309, and BMW’s global release credits higher sales of X models for the brand’s 4.3% US gain. The eighth-generation 3 Series and the electric i3 sedan, which BMW says draws its battery packs from a Bavarian plant, reach US dealers early next year, according to BMW of North America.
What the fourth quarter has to show
Three numbers will say whether Europe’s pattern is spreading. The first is whether European battery-electric deliveries finally climb above the roughly 82,000 a quarter BMW has now posted twice, as the iX3 order backlog turns into handovers and i3 production, which started in Munich in August, adds volume. The second is the China iX3 rollout against a region that has lost about a fifth of BMW’s volume this year. The third is the first US quarter in which iX3 and i7 deliveries count in full, which will show whether the 24.9% decline in electrified sales was a changeover gap or a demand problem. BMW’s nine-month total stands at 1,707,799 cars, down 4.9%, and Europe is not large enough to cover China’s decline by itself.
Europe is mostly buying electric BMWs instead of other BMWs. Is Neue Klasse a win, or a reshuffle until China and the US show up?