BMW

A look at the battery packs of BMW arranged in chronological order with snippets of news, technical papers and presentations.

battery pack mass versus total energy for all packs in the database and BMW picked out in red

Benchmarking BMW against other packs in our battery database you can see that it is perhaps on the heavier than average side.

BMW i3

BMW’s first fully electric vehicle was the i3. Quite a radical design that was launched in 2013. The first mass produced car with most of its internal structure and body made of carbon-fibre reinforced plastic.

  • i3 – this electric vehicle with optional range extender has steadily improved in battery capacity with the cell developments from Samsung SDI supporting the progress.

Gen 5 Battery Packs

  • GEN 5 Battery System – maximises number of cells per module, reduced number of modules and prismatic cell.
    • 2021 BMW iX3 – the first vehicle off the Gen5 electrification platform.
    • BMW i4 – pure EV
    • BMW i5
    • BMW i7

Up to this point BMW had focused on Prismatic based cells. The move to cylindrical cells for Gen 6 is quite radical for BMW.

Gen 6 Battery Packs

  • GEN 6 Battery System – this introduces the 4695 and 46120 cylindrical cells, due to be launched in 2025.
BMW Gen 6 round cell