BMW ActiveHybrid 5 due late 2012

BMW's ActiveHybrid 5 has been beaten to market by a large hybrid sedan from Lexus, but the German brand's competitor to the GS450h will be here before the end of the year.

The ActiveHybrid 5 is based on BMW's F10 generation of 5 Series. Scott Croaker, Product Communications Manager at BMW Australia, told motoring.com.au this morning that the hybrid model's local release is not certain, but likely to take place during the spring.

"That will be second half of this year, so probably towards the end of the third quarter..." Croaker said. "We'll be doing some local launch activities, but we should be able to have it in the dealerships, available from the start of the fourth quarter this year.

The hybrid will be shipped into the country in very small numbers initially — "a very, very small allocation available for our market," in Croaker's words. For BMW Australia it's a leap in the dark.

Where its nemesis, Lexus, has some experience selling the GS450h, BMW is a novice with marketing this type of vehicle, which is why Croaker refrained from offering a sales forecast for the new variant, perhaps indicating that as a percentage of total 5 Series sales in Australia, the ActiveHybrid is unlikely to account for the 10 per cent increment Lexus expects of the GS450h from total GS sales.

Croaker acknowledges that having the Lexus in the market already — with the Japanese firm's sales expectations for the new model to push things along — will help grow the market niche for large, hybrid sedans, to say nothing of Infiniti bringing in the M35h and Audi and Mercedes-Benz reportedly working on hybrid variants of A6 and E-Class, respectively. Croaker believes the growing competition will be self-sustaining and will create a snowball effect.

"Definitely," he said, "we are anticipating that this technology — the hybrid drivetrain [system] — will become more prevalent in the premium market. It's not an area that's going to stay dormant or vacant very long..."

Compounding BMW's current greenhorn status with marketing petrol/electric passenger cars in Australia is the uncertainty surrounding hybrid technology generally.

"It is our first hybrid..." says Croaker, "And the perception of hybrid cars is a little bit murky at the moment. Given what [Toyota's] Prius has done, and the new direction they're [taking], there's a lot of conjecture as to whether hybrid is the answer. Do you get any real benefits from the hybrid?"

Globally, according to Croaker, BMW sees cars like the ActiveHybrid 5 as "a stop-gap measure".

"It is a stepping stone," he says, "to full electric cars — and the BMW i cars, which are due to be released late 2013, early 2014."

Not surprisingly, Croaker was reluctant to pay Lexus too much credit for establishing a market of sorts for premium hybrid sedans.

"BMW, with their EfficientDynamics philosophy, have had, for a number of years, a strategic plan in terms of development — and towards that goal of zero emissions. Hybrid drivetrains were always part of that... a development platform towards that end goal.

"That was always a technology that was going to find its way into our cars."

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