According to the sales figures for the first half of 2025 in North America, the models with larger grilles are selling better. So BMW may have been right this entire time.
Why A Big Grille?
A quick look at the numbers shows that big grilles are big money for BMW, which could make sense as a luxury product. People who spend more money on a car may want to show that value off, and a big flashy nose job does that, apparently. BMW would probably try to argue that there's also functionality at play, with increased airflow or something, and maybe even try to argue about some sort of motorsport influence. Whatever initially led us down the path of larger nostrils hasn't had too many drawbacks for the brand, though, despite the loud critics preaching otherwise.
For the first half of 2025, BMW sold 12,849 i4 EVs that sport one version of the larger kidney grille motif, an increase of more than 10% over the same period a year ago. The gas BMW 4 Series with a similar large grille design has moved 23,369 units so far, an increase of 17.2% over the previous year. The gas 7 Series limo has moved 5,707 units in the US, a rise of 11.1% year-over-year, though the similarly styled i7 EV shrank 11% (selling just 1,708 examples).
It's reasonable to attribute that drop to waning EV demand, with some buyers likely jumping ship from the i7 to the combustion Bimmer. However, the BMW iX electric SUV, which gets its own unique, restyled kidney grille for its latest update, sold 6,742 units, a gain of 3.9% over last year.
Overall, BMW is slightly down on sales in the second quarter compared to last year, but up overall in the first half thanks to a stronger first quarter. So far in 2025, BMW has sold 178,499 new vehicles, an increase of 1.6% over 2024's numbers. Mini is also up by a whopping 19%, likely thanks to restyled and refreshed recent models, moving 14,592 new vehicles. Zooming in on a few things, the BMW i5's sales notably cratered, shrinking 43.4% in the second quarter over the prior year, and it's down 30.3% for the half-year; and overall, BMW BEV sales shrunk an alarming 21.2% in the second quarter, and is down 0.7% for the half.
The updated 2 Series notably got a major sales bump, as it's up 51.3% for the first half of the year, with the X2 compact SUV climbing 107.8% in the same period. The troublesome BMW XM SUV model, which has suffered an apparent lack of demand and now just comes in one performance trim, was down 24.5% for the half.
But our takeaway is the apparent success of the 4 Series and 7 Series. The 4 is getting along in years, too, so perhaps the big nose is growing on people. It will be interesting to see how buyers respond to the Neue Klasse designs, which are coming soon.
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