FRANKFURT: German carmaker BMW aims to more than double the number of electric and hybrid vehicles it has sold to 500,000 by the end of 2019, CEO Harald Krueger told German weekly WirtschaftsWoche.
In 2018 alone, deliveries of electrified vehicles are to rise by a “medium double-digit percentage,” he said.
A pioneer in electric cars, BMW launched the i3 hatchback in 2013 but sales have been relatively low and management has wrestled with whether to go all-out for electrification.
But that changed in September when the Munich-based group said it would gear up for mass production of electric cars and aimed to have 12 fully electric models by 2025 with a range of up to 700 km.
The group said on Monday it had hit its target of selling 100,000 fully electric cars this year around the world, benefiting from strong demand in western Europe and the United States for models such as the i3 and the 2-series plug-in hybrid Active Tourer.
He said the automaker would nonetheless keep making and selling cars with combustion engines to help finance a gradual shift to electrified cars.
Unlike his peer Matthias Mueller, the CEO of Volkswagen, he rejected the idea of doing away with tax subsidies for diesel.
“Bearing customers in mind who bought diesels, that is unjustifiable,” Krueger said.
Mueller earlier this month called for subsidies for diesel vehicles to be shifted gradually to incentives for green cars, such as electric vehicles.
Acting Transport Minister Christian Schmidt had shot down the idea, though, saying that diesel was still needed during the transition to greener vehicles and there was therefore no reason to change tax rules.
BMW aims to have sold 500,000 hybrid, electric cars by end-2019
BMW aims to have sold 500,000 hybrid, electric cars by end-2019
Historic Sikh prayer held at Lahore’s Aitchison College gurdwara after nearly 80 years
- Ceremony marks 140th anniversary of colonial-era institution
- Shrine had remained closed since Partition due to absence of Sikh students
ISLAMABAD: A Sikh worship service was held today, Friday, at the historic gurdwara inside Lahore’s Aitchison College, reopening the shrine for prayer nearly eight decades after it fell out of regular use following the 1947 Partition.
Founded in 1886 to educate the sons of royalty and prominent families of undivided Punjab, Aitchison College once served students from Muslim, Hindu and Sikh backgrounds. After Partition, which created Pakistan and India and triggered mass migration along religious lines, Sikh enrollment ended and the gurdwara ceased functioning as an active place of worship, though the college continued to maintain the building.
Friday’s ceremony took place as part of events marking the elite school’s 140th anniversary.
“A historic and emotional Sikh worship service was held at the Gurdwara on the campus of Aitchison College,” the institution said in a statement announcing the ceremony.
The gurdwara was designed by renowned Sikh architect Ram Singh of the then Mayo School of Arts, now the National College of Arts. Its foundation stone was laid in 1910 by Maharaja Bhupinder Singh of Patiala, a former Aitchison student who studied there from 1904 to 1908, and the Patiala royal family supported fundraising for its construction. Completed shortly afterward, it served as a daily prayer space for Sikh pupils attending the school.
About 15 Sikh alumni of Aitchison College are currently living in India and have recalled attending evening prayers at the gurdwara, describing its black-and-white marble flooring and castle-like interior architecture.
The campus also houses other pre-Partition places of worship, including a mosque built in 1900 by the Nawab of Bahawalpur and a Hindu temple whose foundation stone was laid in 1910 by the Maharaja of Darbhanga.
Over the decades, Aitchison College has educated prominent figures from across pre-Partition Punjab and modern South Asia, including former Pakistani prime ministers Imran Khan, Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali and Feroz Khan Noon, as well as Indian cricket captain Iftikhar Ali Khan Pataudi and members of princely families such as the Maharaja of Patiala.
