BMW XM Future Looking Increasingly Uncertain

With only 7,608 units sold globally in 2025, the XM was the slowest-selling BMW, with even the now-defunct Z4 roadster faring better. This year is looking even worse, as demand through June fell by 22.4 percent to 2,816 cars compared with the first six months of last year. Of course, given its lofty asking price, Munich never really expected its plug-in hybrid SUV to be a huge seller. The problem is that the numbers are apparently so low that the dedicated M model is at risk of being put on the chopping block.

According to a new report from Automotive News, the XM faces an uncertain future, mainly because it’s a slow seller in China. When the M-branded behemoth came out four years ago, the luxury automaker predicted that 23 percent of customers would come from China. The United States was projected to be its largest market at 26 percent, but the electrified SUV is struggling there as well. Official sales numbers show that demand slipped by 4.9 percent in 2025 to just 1,878 vehicles.

The report doesn’t come as a big surprise, though. The XM has been around for about four years, and usually by now, we’d have seen spy photos of facelifted prototypes undergoing testing. That hasn’t been the case, which may mean BMW is skipping mid-cycle revisions for its range-topping SUV. It’s highly unlikely to get a Neue Klasse makeover, even if the brand has promised to roll out approximately 40 new or updated models by the end of 2027.

Although it’s officially considered a standalone M product, BMW has achieved significant economies of scale. Not only does the XM use the tried-and-tested CLAR platform, but its plug-in hybrid V8 setup has since been shared with the M5 models. The not-for-America XM 50e is also a plug-in hybrid, but it’s built around an inline-six setup found in other PHEVs carrying the famous roundel.

Even if BMW has spread out the costs, the XM might be too niche to warrant a successor. As always, nothing is official until the company says so, but the lack of any signs pointing toward a facelift, let alone a second generation, casts doubt on the XM’s future. That doesn’t mean it’ll be dropped overnight, since plans are made years in advance and rarely change during the product’s life cycle unless the situation is exceptionally bad.

If the XM does go away later this decade, it’ll follow other BMWs into the car graveyard. The Z4 and 8 Series have already been discontinued, and the i4 is dying so that the new i3 sedan can live. Rumor has it that between the new iX5 and the upcoming iX7, there’s no room in the lineup for another outlandishly styled SUV, the iX. Automotive News also claims the 2 Series Active Tourer minivan may be living on borrowed time as well.

38

Motor1’s Take: As with virtually all long-running automakers, BMW is having a really hard time in China, where its sales are on a slippery slope. With the XM struggling in what was supposed to be its second-largest market and the situation in the US not being any better, either, it’s easy to connect the dots.

But even if a replacement is not coming, the XM is likely to stick around for a couple of years, at which point it will have been one of the very few models to skip the Neue Klasse treatment. With BMW’s lineup changing drastically in such a short timeframe, it won’t be long before the XM begins to look out of place.