BMW Says It Has No Plans to Drop Sedans

BMW wants to keep making sedans in spite of U.S. tariff pressures on German imports and the far higher sales of sport utility vehicles, said Sebastian Mackensen, the company’s North America chief.

Mackensen made the comments in an interview on Tuesday, a day before BMW unveiled an updated version of its full-size 7 Series sedan, which includes a slew of design and technology features BMW had originally developed for its electric vehicles.

The 7 Series vehicles will be the first without electric powertrains to come equipped with the new tech, which includes a panoramic heads-up display in the windshield and a voice assistant that uses artificial intelligence. Other upgrades include an enlarged drop-down screen that, along with a 36-speaker array, can essentially turn the rear seats into a small movie theater. 

Called “neue klasse” — German for “new class” — BMW had intended its EVs to meld futuristic designs with a software-driven vehicle platform, following EV makers such as Tesla, Rivian, Lucid and Chinese brands.

“Already so many innovations have come to life that the company decided we need to bring those innovations into our entire lineup,” Mackensen said.

The 7 Series currently starts above $99,000 for the base model and runs up through a $168,000 starting price for the high-performance i7 M70 EV.

“I would say it is really on the top of our product portfolio,” Mackensen said. “It is the pinnacle of what we produce when it comes to luxury, but obviously always, always performance.”

However, since 2018, another full-size BMW, the X7, has rocketed past the 7 Series in the U.S. in terms of sales. In 2025 BMW sold nearly about twice as many full-size X7 SUVs as it did full-size sedans, if you combine sales of both the 7-Series with the similar, two-door, 8-Series.

This reflects an industry-wide trend, as SUV sales have overtaken sedans by a wide margin.

The X7, meanwhile, is made in Spartanburg, South Carolina, while the 7 Series, like all BMW sedans, is imported. Vehicles shipped to the U.S. from Germany carry a 15% tariff.

“This is definitely going to come into play,” said Robby DeGraff, manager of product and consumer insights at AutoPacific. “I can’t see BMW ever reallocating production of the 7 Series stateside, so the automaker is going to have to carefully keep tabs on demand and actual sales, to see how long it will be worth it to import the 7 Series.”