BMW's all-electric sales are set to double this year, but the company still falls short of Tesla

The BMW Group's all-electric vehicle sales rose 121.4% in the first 9 months of 2021 to 59,688 units, with the German automaker saying on Wednesday that electric cars are “an increasingly important growth and success factor” for the company.

In total, the Munich-based firm sold 231,575 all-electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles between January and September (+ 98.9%). For comparison, in the third quarter of 2021 alone, Elon Musk's Tesla delivered 241,300 vehicles.

“In the third quarter of 2021, operations were increasingly impacted by problems in the supply of semiconductor components,” the company said in a statement. “While this resulted in lower production and lower sales volumes between July and September 2021, this impact was more than offset by the positive price effect for new and used vehicles.”

Returning to electric cars, the BMW Group wants all-electric cars to account for at least 50% of its deliveries by 2030.