Actually, Oliver Zipse should have presented the BMW Group's quarterly figures in a conference call this Thursday.

But the CEO of the Munich car manufacturer, who earned a whopping 4.1 billion euros before taxes within three months, left this part of his work to his CFO Nicolas Peter.

Zipse himself ventured into more difficult terrain.

He is currently accompanying Chancellor Olaf Scholz on his controversial trip to China's head of state Xi Jinping.

Henning Peitsmeier

Business correspondent in Munich.

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Now neither the German nor the European line in China policy has been clarified.

For BMW "as a global company" with 31 locations in 15 countries, on the other hand, things seem clear, as a company spokesman said: "We need dialogue." That's why Zipse accepted the Chancellor's invitation.

Participation is not a surprise.

After all, Zipse's Volkswagen colleague Oliver Blume flies alongside the heads of Adidas, BASF, Bayer, Merck and Siemens.

Hardly any industry is as dependent on China as the German auto industry.

BMW sells a third of its cars there.

And if the board has its way, there should be even more, especially since the economic prospects in the People's Republic are better than in Europe.

"We are not pessimistic about the market development in China," said CFO Peter.

And this despite the fact that 10 percent of BMW dealers are currently closed due to Xi Jinping's rigid corona policy.

China is the driver of electric mobility, and BMW will sell more than half of its all-electric vehicles here in 2030, Peter said.

160,000 electric cars are planned in the first year

This is one of the reasons why BMW will not build the latest electric version of the small car brand Mini in Oxford, but in China.

The partner for this is the Chinese Great Wall group, with which the Bavarians agreed a joint venture at the end of 2019, which aims to set up joint production of electric cars.

As early as next year, the first 160,000 battery cars are expected to roll off the assembly line in Jiangsu province, half of which will be fully electric mini and small cars from Great Wall.

A total of 650 million euros were invested in the new factory, which will initially employ 3,000 people.

There is no question that BMW will also export the electric minis manufactured there.

How much will depend on global demand, Peter said.

Only combustion models are to be built in the English mini plant.

"Oxford remains the heart of Mini production," said Peter, "further plans will be communicated in due course." It therefore remains unclear whether the traditional plant will be converted for the electric models.

According to Peter, it is "not currently planned" that Great Wall will have its own small cars produced there in the future.

Recently there had even been rumors that Oxford could be completely handed over to the Chinese.

Financially, BMW would not need any proceeds from a site sale.

Although the group produces fewer vehicles due to the well-known delivery difficulties of important components, it can sell them more profitably due to the high demand.

In the third quarter alone, earnings before interest and taxes increased by 28 percent to almost 3.7 billion euros.

The operating margin reached 8.9 percent after 7.8 percent a year ago.

For the full year, BMW is heading for a new record result.

The reason is again in China: In February, the Munich-based company took over the majority of its second Chinese production joint venture, Brilliance, and now controls 75 percent of it.

The revaluation of the shares already held resulted in a book profit of 7.7 billion euros.

And so the consolidated net income after nine months at 16.4 billion euros is already a good six billion euros above the figure for the previous year.