BMW drops 'i' from its petrol cars; to be used only on EVs

BMW already has a number of electric vehicles in its product lineup, ranging from the iX1 to the i7.

BMW has officially confirmed that it will drop the "i" at the end of its petrol-powered vehicles names. The change in nomenclature is to make its model names less confusing in the future. So, instead of "BMW 330i", the model will simply be named "BMW 330". The "i" will be exclusively used on BMW's EV offerings.

The "i" suffix at the end of its petrol-powered models was first introduced in the 1970s to denote fuel injection and has been used on every petrol model since. Going forward, it will only be numeric, with the first number indicating the model and the last two indicating the engine.

The "i" in electric vehicles stands for innovation. BMW already has a number of electric vehicles in its product lineup, ranging from the iX1 to the i7.

Bernd Korber, Senior VP of Brand Management, BMW, stated, "Historically, even though our interpretation of BMW i was always different, it’s more innovation, not necessarily only electric, and we historically had injection at the end [of the badge], we said, we would like to keep 'i' as an asset, and we would like to keep it as a signature to indicate you’re driving an electric car and that was the logic that we had."

Source: BMWBlog