BMW jams a 101.7-kWh battery inside the i7 sedan and an even larger 109.1-kWh pack in the iX SUV. It won’t go any bigger than that since there’s no point in squeezing extra range from its EVs. According to the company’s R&D head honcho, Frank Weber, range anxiety has mostly been cured already. Internal studies showed people are satisfied with a real-world driving range of 400-500 kilometers. That’s 249 to 311 miles.

There are other reasons why BMW is confident that supersized battery packs are not the solution. The impending arrival of the Neue Klasse platform with sixth-generation battery cells will boost energy density by more than 20%. The round cells will also support 30% faster charging, enabling 186 miles (300 kilometers) of range within ten minutes. Future EVs on the all-new platform are estimated to deliver a 30% range boost compared to prismatic cells.

When asked by Automotive News whether bigger batteries are a solution, Frank Weber was against the idea: “No, you cannot make batteries bigger and bigger because then EVs don’t make sense anymore. There is a lot of talk around building EVs with way more than 621 miles (1,000 km) of range, but why would you do this?”

BMW’s top R&D brass discussed sustainability, pointing out how harmful it would be to the environment to make even larger battery packs. Weber is quoted as saying that cramming extra-large batteries in electric cars would be “unnecessarily bad” since owners wouldn’t really need that extra range: “From the data we have, only very few people travel distances of several hundred kilometers with an EV.”

BMW is making its electric cars more eco-friendly, not just by improving battery technology. The Vision Neue Klasse X has a slippery body with a 20% lower drag coefficient. A prequel to the next-generation iX3, the crossover concept has a newly developed braking system and EV-specific tires. Compared to the outgoing CLAR-based iX3, the concept’s overall vehicle efficiency jumped by 25%.

As for the holy grail of batteries, solid-state batteries are still many years away. Weber estimates the technology is “at least one vehicle generation away.” He believes it’ll likely take a decade before electric cars with solid-state batteries generate significant volumes. BMW’s development boss argues automakers have made substantial investments in current batteries, so they focus on the return on investment before pursuing the next big thing.

Source: Automotive News