By RAHIMI YUNUS / Pic By MUHD AMIN NAHARUL

BMW Group Malaysia has hit new record high in the deliveries of plug-in hybrid vehicles, reaching 52.7% sales of its total volume in the first four months this year.

“Our portfolio of Visionary Mobility vehicles has been developing from strength to strength here, and we now have a plug-in hybrid vehicle variant for almost all models which makes for the largest portfolio currently available in the Malaysian automotive industry,” BMW Malaysia MD and CEO Harald Hoelzl said in a statement yesterday.

The local success has contributed to the overall German carmaker’s electrified vehicle sales worldwide totalling 36,692 units or 41.7% growth over the same period last year.

Globally, the combined sales of BMW i, BMW iPerformance and MINI Electric vehicles were up 52% to 9,831 units in April 2018, on track to achieve its target of over 140,000 electrified vehicles sales this year.

BMW Group AG now has over 250,000 electrified vehicles on the roads today.

Locally, as at April 2018, BMW Malaysia introduced two new plug-in hybrid vehicles — the new BMW 530e Sport in January, which was the first BMW 5 Series Hybrid with eDrive Technology and the fifth BMW iPerformance model.

The premium automaker then introduced the new MINI Countryman plug-in hybrid, the first of such variant for the MINI brand.

In terms of infrastructure, BMW Malaysia has installed a new BMW i Charging Stations at WEIL Hotel in Ipoh, the first in the state of Perak; each at Holiday Inn Melaka and The

Equatorial Melaka, the firsts in the state; as well as at CityONE Megamall Kuching, the first in Sarawak.

BMW Malaysia has also collaborated with Malaysian Green Technology Corp to allow its Visionary Mobility with the BMW iPerformance and MINI Electric vehicles to be sup- ported by the ChargEV platform that has more than 270 charging facilities nationwide.

On the overall sales, BMW Malaysia recently announced its first quarter performance with 3,000 BMW, MINI and Motorrad vehicles sold — a 15% year-on-year (YoY) increase.

The BMW brand saw an 18% YoY growth in sales to 2,500 new vehicles, followed by MINI at 6% YoY to 220 units and Motorrad at a 2% YoY rise to 260 motorcycles in the period.

In 2017, BMW Malaysia delivered a total of 10,618 new cars, which 39.6% of the total volume was its SUV X-Series vehicles.