Boss urges BMW to surge past Benz

The BMW Group’s sales staff has been sent an email from their new boss encouraging them to clamour and innovate their way back in front of arch-rival Daimler.

Sent just a day after Oliver Zipse was crowned CEO and Harald Krueger stepped down before being pushed, it urged the sales team to “embrace change” even as luxury car sales were on the wane.

Daimler has taken over the global number one ranking from BMW and surged ahead in the last five years and the Munich brand has squandered its early lead in electrification.

"Instead of blaming the current situation, conditions, political landscape or particular individuals, a positive spirit will enable us to seize the opportunities available to us,” Zipse’s email said.

“Such a positive spirit will be reflected in our culture: the harder the job, the more innovative our solution.

"We don't always have to be first, but we most certainly have to be far better than our competitors in everything that we do. This applies not only to our products and services, but also to our processes and structures, as well as our costs," the email said.

BMW is on the verge of the widespread adoption of a flexible hybrid vehicle architecture, which will allow electric, hybrid and internal-combustion powertrain options to be built on the same platform and on the same production lines.

This has been conceived to give BMW build-flexibility in case EV take-up is slower than expected, though runs the risk of compromising certain models.