The German manufacturer is getting ready to launch its facelifted 7-Series in international markets next year. At the moment, the outgoing 7-series can be had in only one electric variant, the 740e. The company’s plans to introduce more hybrid variants are thanks to stricter rules worldwide, especially China.
The new Chinese legislation requires 8 percent of each brand’s sales to be for ‘new energy vehicles’, which consists of hybrids and all-electric vehicles from 2019. This leads many sources to suggest that BMW will add another hybrid variant and make changes to the outgoing 740e. The main focus will be hybridisation and not the autonomous driving, which means major improvements in driverless tech won’t arrive until 2021. Since this department is on the back burner, tech like adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and emergency braking and collision avoidance will be tweaked and not overhauled. There is no official date for the facelifted 7-series as yet, but we can expect it to make its debut at the 2018 Beijing motor show in April next year.
We can expect the facelifted model to arrive in India a few months after its global debut next year.