Article Summary
- The 2027 BMW 7 Series and i7 will premiere at the Beijing Auto Show on April 22.
- The fully electric 7 Series will switch from prismatic to cylindrical cells, boosting energy density by 20%.
- Rimac will build the battery pack in Zagreb and ship it to Dingolfing where the 7 Series is assembled.
It’s been two years since the BMW Group teamed up with Rimac to jointly develop battery technology. We haven’t heard much since, but now the fruits of that collaboration are about to be revealed. Arriving at the 2026 Beijing Auto Show on April 22, the i7 facelift will benefit from the German-Croatian alliance.
Although the 7 Series is only undergoing a mid-cycle update, the i7’s battery pack will be completely different. BMW is switching its flagship electric sedan to the Gen6 battery pack with cylindrical cells. As seen in the new iX3 and i3, these offer a 20% higher energy density than prismatic cells.
Rimac has helped BMW integrate the 4695 lithium-ion cylindrical cells with its Gen5 module-based technology, creating a scalable architecture. While there’s no word yet on charging power, we’re told the electric 7 Series will “charge much faster.”
As a refresher, the outgoing i7 maxes out at 195 kW. That equates to 106 miles (170 kilometers) of range in 10 minutes and a 10%-80% charge in 34 minutes. Hopefully, BMW will get as close as possible to the 400-kW capability of the Neue Klasse models. However, those vehicles were developed from the ground up as EVs. Without an 800-volt electrical architecture, reaching that peak power in an existing model seems highly unlikely.
The battery will be built at the Rimac Campus near Zagreb and shipped to Dingolfing, where BMW exclusively builds the 7 Series. We expect the long-rumored ALPINA version of the i7 facelift to use identical battery technology, since the car will largely mirror the BMW model.
Although the deal between BMW and Rimac was announced in April 2024, Mate Rimac revealed in a Facebook post at the time that the two companies had been secretly working together since 2022. The CEO and founder of the Rimac Group called the partnership “not only the biggest job in our history, but perhaps the biggest contract in the history of the country.”
The long-term deal includes additional electric vehicles, so the 2027 BMW i7 is just the beginning.