It's the same thing everywhere. In Europe, BMW and other German brands used to give big discounts--around 20%--if you leased one of their models as a company car. As of 2022, they've decided to stop doing this for their electric cars.

I guess it doesn't make sense for them to give away such a big discount on cars that they can't even build as fast as people buy them. The demand is too high.

 

Sure, but they could have kept it in place as a token gesture by listing them all at the baseline incentive of $500. It didn't need to be the cap value of $2000.

That would have looked a lot more respectable than this "No soup for you!" approach.

 

Why does a German automaker need to subsidize the purchases of American service members?

 

Because America is the best country in the United States.

 

It's not about a German company "needing" to subsidize American service members, it's about sales, economics and marketing. BMW North America as a subsidiary must compete in the US and one differentiation is that discount. Many commercial businesses in the US offer service member discounts as a way to both differentiate and say thanks, so dual purpose. I think that BMW AG in Germany understands that, else they would not have signed off on this particular regional program.

There are many reasons for BMW NA to exclude EVs - I don't think any of the reasons are malicious or "low" but rather, calculated sales, economic and market based. Ie, I can't see that the top leadership of BMW NA are saying -- screw American service members & their families out of our EV car discount. But, I can see them saying EV adoption is on the rise organically, let's wait to pour more dollars into driving demand. It's similar to any new product release, why would manufacturers discount something they know can sell themselves early on? It's all business, all day.

I am in a military household and was disappointed in not getting the discount too but it didn't stop me, not in the least.

 

Well, someone must have pushed BMW for an answer about why the i4 was not included in:



Because they have actually updated the site in a way that removes the contradiction of all cars being eligible, but the i4 and iX not actually being listed as included.

The site now reads:



Completely removing any mention of the electrified part of the line is a pretty low move, IMHO.

And then there's this:



I guess if you're in the military or at least eligible for the BMW Military Prigram, BMW feels that you should have to keep paying for gas.

THAAAANKS.

Thanks for posting this. As a USMC veteran, I am interested in the discount. I also work for Salesforce and we're supposed to be eligible for a corporate discount as well. It feels like they'll come around in a few years after EVs become more ubiquitous. Unfortunately its Supply & Demand