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BMW will no longer update its flagship electric model i3, marking the end of BMW's first all-electric model, according to the Financial Times.

Notta, head of sales and marketing at BMW, said there are no specific plans for i3 follow-up models, and more mainstream models are under construction.

However, Notta also said that the i3 may not be updated, but it will continue to produce and sell the model for the next few years, and the pure electric i3 means a lot to BMW in a sense.

It is understood that BMW Group launched its first all-electric model i3 in 2013, and since then BMW has been developing different battery, software and electric vehicle technology, which is the first attempt by parents in the field of all-electric vehicles.

BMW is one of carmakers that are adopting electric technology on a large scale to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and meet sales targets in major markets such as Europe and China.

According to the plan, BMW will launch 25 new energy models by 2023, more than half of which are pure electricity. BMW predicts a sharp increase in electric vehicles by 2025, with sales growing at an average annual rate of 30% by 2021. Sales of electric vehicles will double that of 2019.

At the Frankfurt Motor Show, BMW unveiled the design of an electric car that will go on sale in 2021 and showed off the electric MINI, which will go on sale next year.

The i3, currently in its fifth iteration, has sold more than 150000 units so far, and demand is increasing every year as the emerging electric vehicle market booms. In the first half of this year, i3 sales rose 21 per cent from a year earlier.

In fact, Mr Notta says, i3 performed very well in its sixth year of production (2019).

He added that sales rose 30 per cent in August from a year earlier, a "significant" increase for such a relatively older model.

When i3 was launched in 2013, it was designed as a pioneer in future technology, and was widely praised by the market, from battery power systems to sustainable materials to minimalist interiors.

But for BMW, the i3 is always an outlier. It bears little resemblance to BMW's limousine or SUV series, and attracts a completely different crowd. From this point of view, stopping the update of i3 is a decisive move.

In the past few years, the luxury carmaker has slowed its efforts to promote electric technology in major models, including the BMW 3-Series, and has lagged behind the electrification trend. The new chief executive of BMW, Ciptzer, is under pressure to reverse the backwardness.

Now, BMW's research and development in the field of pure electric has lagged behind Jaguar Land Rover, Audi, Mercedes-Benz and other luxury brands. One of the challenges facing Chipze is to lead BMW to catch up with its competitors and move towards electrification in an all-round way.

Most of BMW's competitors plan to use a dedicated platform to produce greener cars to reduce the number of different basic components and materials needed to produce a variety of models. This could improve the profit margins of electric vehicles, while BMW's more complex strategy involves higher costs.

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