BMW CEO Says They Haven't Used Internal Combustion Engines

Much of the auto industry is undergoing a massive shift away from fossil fuels, butBMWCEO Oliver Zipse said his company has "no plans to stop developing combustion engines."The announcement comes a day after rival Audi boss Marcus Duesman announced it had stopped developing the ICE.

Dussmann made the statement in an interview with the German car company, citing the upcoming Euro 7 emissions standard, which he called a "huge technical challenge."Instead, Audi will tune its existing ICE to meet those standards.Interestingly, he also claimed that the Euro 7 standard "has little to no benefit for the environment".

Meanwhile,BMWdid a thorough announcement yesterday about new electric models, and in fact,BMWhas a Mini that's purely electric by 2030, debuting in 2025 as well as its final ICE model, Toumachi Zipse told CNBC's Philippine Le Beau says it's not finished with internal combustion "because demand for ICE vehicles will remain strong for many years to come".That being said, BMW does expect half of its car sales to be electric by 2030.

Back in 2019, Markus Schäfer, head of development at Mercedes-Benz parent company Daimler, told Auto & Sport that there were no plans for new ICEs, but did not rule out work on restarting them in the future.

Obviously, all automakers face the same emissions standards, and some will face the technical challenges better than others.Maybe BMW sees space for ICE and EV on the table.Or, the fact that it might release some new technology to make it ICE compliant doesn't quite address it.Other automakers, such as Mazda, have also been able to come up with innovations like spark-controlled compression ignition on the SkyActiv-X engine, which still has internal combustion but is more efficient than conventional engines.Porsche, Audi and Mazda have also been exploring so-called eFuels as a cleaner power source for ICE.