It says “Mini” but every generation gets bigger and bigger. (credit: Jim Resnick)

BMW confirmed to Bloomberg today that it will start work on an electric Mini and an electric X3 SUV. This news comes after reports of deliberation on BMW’s electric strategy among the company’s top executives earlier this month.

Chief Executive Officer Harald Krueger told Bloomberg that the all-electric Mini would be market-ready by 2019 and the X3 SUV would be a 2020 vehicle.

Reuters reported three weeks ago that BMW’s top executives had been resistant to the idea of building an electric Mini-brand car. Minis have a smaller profit margin than BMW-brand cars, they argued, and the investment costs of building an all-electric vehicle are considerable. A few executives felt that BMW should push ahead in the electric vehicle field, but after the weak US performance of the i3, other bigwigs were apparently not convinced that committing additional investment to purely electric cars would make financial sense.