BMW’s C evolution electric scooter has been in production since 2014, but the project began back in 2011 from pretty much a zero start point, according to Markus Kirchschlager, the man in charge of production planning for the sophisticated e-scooter.

“There was a lot of development for the e-mobility technologies at that time, but almost nothing with regard to setting up an electric vehicle (EV) production line,” he states. “You couldn’t just contact a supplier and say ‘build me an EV production line’, so we had to research what we needed and began to network with specialist suppliers, universities and, of course, with colleagues in the BMW Group.”

“At that time is was difficult to get any momentum behind the project,” he adds, “as there were many concerns about the potential for this market and the costs involved in producing an electric scooter. We talked to our colleagues on the car side, who were then starting on the i-project, and they too were starting with the basics. We were able to scale some of the technology for our use, such as the batteries, and also leverage supply combining with the car volumes.”