BMW i5 Under Consideration As Tesla Model S Competitor

The success of the Tesla Model S has caught the auto industry by surprise, with European luxury car makers scrambling to come up with legitimate competitors to Tesla’s dominance. According to insiders, sales of the Model S have convinced some at BMW that a competitor car, possibly called the BMW i5, has a lot of potential in a market created and dominated by Tesla.

According to a HybridCars exclusive, a Tesla-competitor of some kind is definitely going to happen. That said, nothing is set in stone, including the name, though such a vehicle makes only too much sense right now. Priced at $70,000, the Tesla Model S is literally stealing sales from the likes of BMW, Mercedes, and Audi, and Elon Musk has said over and over again that his affordable electric car aims to be the zero-emissions equivalent of the BMW 3-series sedan.

That is both a compliment on the Bimmer’s success, and a serious threat to BMW’s bread-and-butter sedan of Model S sales are any indicator. This has BMW tossing around the idea of a larger pure electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle, bigger than the soon-to-be-released BMW i3, but cheaper than the i8 plug-in hybrid sports car.

It could be priced right around the same point as the Tesla Model S, though debate on whether it would be a sedan or a crossover are still up in the air. In other words, BMW is only just beginning the discussion of a serious Tesla Model S contender.

I didn’t realize they were that far behind.

 Source: Hybrid Cars