BMW, the best-selling foreign brand in Korea, announced Tuesday it would launch the German luxury carmaker’s first all-electric i3 compact in the first half of next year here.

The battery-powered i3 hatchback, previously known as the Megacity concept, combines a body made of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic with an aluminum chassis.

Korea’s top battery maker Samsung SDI is the sole supplier of lithium-ion battery cells for the i3, which goes on sale globally this year. 

“The i3 is reinventing BMW to have the right solutions for sustainable mobility,” Glenn Schmidt, head of steering government affairs, told The Korea Herald.

He predicted the i3 would appeal to existing BMW drivers as well as people with a certain level of awareness about environmental sustainability.

“It [the i3] is still BMW and still fun to drive. It is also very much for our volume growth strategy,” he said.

Manuel Sattig, BMW i technical communications manager, said BMW’s joining the recent EV initiative of the global auto industry would help boost the whole market and improve customers’ lukewarm early reaction.

“Bringing more sophisticated, more premium products into the market will help make electric mobility a unique and worldwide success,” he said.

The BMW i3 is expected to become the most expensive electric vehicle yet. Its European price tag is 40,000 euro ($36,000).

Even though the i3 manager wouldn’t elaborate on the Korean pricing, he said: “When we announce the final pricing, a lot of people will be positively surprised.”

Schmidt reaffirmed BMW’s commitment to the Korean market where the carmaker sells more than 20,000 cars every year, adding that Korea was one of the emerging “BRICK” markets from the perspective of the German head office.

On Tuesday, BMW Korea and South Korea’s Environment Ministry held an academic conference in Seoul to discuss ways to speed up the penetration of electric vehicles.

The E-Mobility event covered diverse EV issues ranging from government policy to recent trends in battery and charging technologies to related service industries, with some 200 participants in attendance.

In Korea, there were some 1,000 electric cars on the road last year ― the first year of the government’s EV initiative. The country aims to introduce 1 million all-electric vehicles by 2020.

By Lee Ji-yoon (jylee@heraldcorp.com)