BMW aims for 20% of its vehicles to be electric by 2023 -paper

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German luxury carmaker BMW is planning to step up its production of electric vehicles, Chief Executive Oliver Zipse told German daily Augsburger Allgemeine.

© Reuters/WOLFGANG RATTAY A BMW electric car is seen during the E.ON annual shareholders meeting in enEss

"We are significantly increasing the number of electric vehicles. Between 2021 and 2023, we will build a quarter of a million more electric cars than originally planned", Zipse told the newspaper's Monday edition according to a pre-released version.

BMW wants roughly every fifth car it sells to be powered by an electric engine by 2023, Zipse said, compared to about 8% this year.

The manager also reiterated his call to speed up the expansion of charging infrastructure.

"15,000 private and about 1,300 public charging points would have to be put into operation every week as of today. Unfortunately, we are a long way from that", he told the paper.

(Reporting by Arno Schuetze; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)