Got the salt? How about the pepper? Great, here’s what’s going on, BMW admit to moving a vast amount of cars around the world.

Well, it’s not the literal version, there’s nothing illegal to talk about and the news itself isn’t that big. The trigger is what made thins blow up.

BMW Group board member and sales and marketing director, Ian Robertson made the announcement during a company event in Munich earlier this week.

For a company that’s constantly at the top of the luxury sales pack decisions like these matter and it can be very relevant as to what’s happening in Europe.

Robetson claimed that “challenges in Europe are getting greater” and that while the market has potential, it will be a few years before things even out.

While that is happening the Bavarians have to adapt to the situation and make faster deliveries in markets where the demand really exists.

At the moment these markets are in the United States and the Chinese market. ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association has figures to confirm the downside BMW is on about.

Just last month, 10.8 percent less than in the same month last year with major markets like the one in Germany, one of the strongest around being down by 10.9%.

Meanwhile the places like France are down by 17.9%, Italy by 25.7% and Spain by a whopping 36.8%. This isn’t new since the entire market is down by 7.6 per cent relative to the first nine months of 2011.

So how many cars did they shift around? No precise figure was given but a pointer of “tens of thousands” can be quite relevant.

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Marcus M.

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The latest announcement from BMW is rather worrying as they claim the new F10 BMW 5 Series has sold out in all the markets it’s been made available.

The new BMW 5 Series entered the European market about a month ago and the U.S. market just over a week ago and yet all the lots went out already. Happily since this isn’t a limited edition, you can still get one, you will however have to wait for about three months or so to put one in your driveway.

Ian Robertson, BMW’s sales boss was present at an industry press conference in Bilbao, Spain today were he made this information available to the public along with statements according to which the Bavarians were expecting something like this to happen since the 5 Series is a BMW core product and the F10’s less controversial styling when compared to the previous generation would see more market appeal.

Besides the styling there’s another important appeal of this BMW 5 Series, it shares almost 70% of its technology with the company’s flagship model, the BMW 7 Series. As an additional success item, analysts believe that the new 5-er is ‘stealing’ market share from Audi’s A6 because it will be soon replaced by an all-new model and customers are put off by the idea of buying a new premium car that’s almost already outdated.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

BMW’s electric four seater, the Megacity, is one eagerly awaited vehicle but according to some recent speculation it may be just the tip of the iceberg for the new market the Bavarians are approaching.

Apparently BMW are considering offering more than one variant of the Megacity and are even considering adding a sports car to the line.

BMW sales and marketing boss Ian Robertson has admitted to the fact that we could be expecting these multiple versions of the Megacity, when interviewed by Autocar, and also referred to the Vision EfficientDynamics sports car concept as something with a strong potential for becoming a pure electric sports car.

This said though it is to be expected that a production version of the Vision EfficientDynamics will be different in some ways but one thing has been set clear about the Megacity and this potential EV Sports Car, they will both be sold with BMW badges and no different brands are going to be started. They will still have a certain distinction, pretty much what you can expect from the M powered cars.

Until we see either of them on the road there’s a few things you need to know, neither will come cheap since BMW are very decided on killing weight as much as possible so most of the construction will be made of carbon fiber. Add to that pretty high cost of development and low target sales and prices aren’t going to be joyous.

Either way I have to say I’m eagerly awaiting an EV that’s done properly.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

As you may remember the stunning BMW Gran Coupe concept that was unveiled at the Beijing Motor Show this year has been announced by various sources that it will be making into production.

That’s not the full story however, as since 2012 isn’t that far away, the Bavarians are treating us to some information on what should we be expecting from it by then.

For starters, we have confirmation on the production version of the BMW Gran Coupe to be coming in in the second quarter of 2012 from BMW’s chief of sales and marketing, Ian Robertson.

So far, so good, but there’s more information to come from the same Mr. Robertson and it raises an eyebrow for many. The BMW Gran Coupe will be wearing the 6 Series badge and more importantly, there will be a M6 version of it as well. This is frankly, great news but the dark side of it can be seen in suspicion that the current form of the BMW 6 Series Coupe will be dying off.

This is not confirmed in any way but there is little information on the matter so it’s still a possibility.

When it will be going into production the BMW Gran Coupe will rival models such as the Porsche Panamera, the Audi A7 and the next generation Mercedes-Benz CLS.

Upon its debut, Adrian van Hooydonk, BMW chief designer, claimed that Gran Coupe point to a particular model, to a sedan model with the presence of a 7 Series, but more dynamic, more sportive, oriented to the driver.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

About a week ago BMW has announced that they will be launching a car named, at the moment, Megacity Vehicle  by 2013.

The Megacity Vehicle is destined to be a zero-emission urban vehicle that will feature lightness as it’s key selling point. This lightness will be achieved as a result of use of more carbon fiber in the overall construction.

BMW’s head of global sales Ian Robertson has declared that this move will make BMW be the first manufacturer to take carbon fiber to effectively high volume, effectively turning the light polymer fiber into something that can at the moment only be found on the most expensive of cars into a product obtainable by the masses.

To be fair, people that buy BMWs in the first place aren’t “the masses” but i’m anticipating a revolution of the likes Ford brought along by bringing motorsport to the masses through stock cars.

Furthermore Robertson said that carbon fiber will be making it to more and more cars as general rules of construction that are used in the Megacity Vehicle are applicable everywhere. Another point Robertson made during his speech was that carbon fiber technology could help generate better economies of scale.

BMW and SGL Group have started building a $100 million carbon fiber manufacturing plant in Washington state to supply parts for its vehicles. That plant will produce the carbon fiber that a plant in Germany will mold it into paneling for the Megacity vehicle and, eventually, for other cars currently in the BMW range.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

BMW haven’t managed to overtake Lexus as top seller in the United States over the past ten decade despite a great product lineup.

This year however, Lexus have suffered quite a bit due to the company recalls.

Despite these “good” news analysts still believe that Lexus will still come in first and BMW will still be trailing even closer behind. What is most likely to be the thing keeping BMW from taking the sales crown in the American states is the wind down of the old 5 series since, in preparation for the June launch of the new model the dealers have … almost run out of cars to sell.

BMW AG global sales chief Ian Robertson stated that the 5 Series amounts to around 25 percent of BMW sales in the states and this issue will be a slight problem but with the launch of the new one it should be covered and he expects sales to register a few digit points of growth which are most likely to keep overall sales at a level pace.

So BMW are doing quite well while Lexus will have to wait for the simple results of the recall issues with the Lexus GX that took a bit off the boost sales Lexus required.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com