Markus Flasch is no longer the CEO of BMW’s M Division, as he’s moved on to another position at BMW and former M CEO Frank van Meel returns to the position. However, Flasch obviously still has some insight into the M Division’s plans for the future and recently hinted to Sport Auto that the first fully-electric M car could arrive as early as 2025.

According to Flasch, getting the Bavarian brand, as a whole, on board with the fully-electric M cars wasn’t exactly easy. “A lot of persuasion had to be done. There was also a lot of discussion about the question of whether [electric] motorsport has a future and, if so, what that might look like. There were very contradicting views in the group. But everyone is behind the program that was finally adopted.” he told auto motor und sport. (Google-translated from German).

While Flasch wasn’t very specific, he did hint that a fully-electric model would be launched some time after 2025. “Fully electric driving is the future for BMW M too. But when? That is currently not clear, also because the internal combustion engine will continue to play a major role in customer and top-class motorsport for a very long time. For this reason alone, an offer is needed in the series area. But I can promise: From the second half of the decade, we will have all types of drive on offer, i.e. combustion, high-performance hybrids and purely electric, which complement each other perfectly.” said Flasch.

Since a concept car will likely debut a few years before the eventual release of any fully-electric M model, and Flasch claims a BEV M car will debut before 2030, we can expect to see at least a hint of it around 2025. Which is incredibly exciting news. It seems that Flasch fully understood where the M Division needed to go and was already preparing the brand for the journey.

There’s no word on what sort of car the M Division’s first electric model will be but, using some deductive reasoning, it’s possible it could be the next BMW M3. Reason being is that the next-gen M5 will be released prior to an all-electric model and will likely be a plug-in hybrid. Same goes for the standalone BMW XM SUV. Additionally, BMW M will likely want to make a big splash with its first EV and using the iconic M3, which should be getting a new generation around 2028, would be perfect. Though, at the moment, that’s pure speculation.

However, the fact that Flasch is talking about fully-electric M cars with certainty is encouraging. It’s happening, it’s just a matter of when. The tech needs to be there, to allow M customers to use their car on track as they normally would. Hopefully it happens sooner than later.

[Source: Auto Motor und Sport]