BMW Shares Hit 52-Week Low Even as Combustion Cars Regain Price Advantage in Germany

BMW stock hits 52-week low after profit warning cuts auto margin to 1-3%; robotics expansion at Spartanburg fails to offset China downturn. Key catalysts: July 10 pre-close call and July 30 half-year report.

The Munich automaker is investing in humanoid robots to reshape its factory floors, yet the stock market is fixated on a far more immediate problem: margins that have been slashed by a brutal downturn in China. BMW shares tumbled 3.54% on Friday to close at €58.92, piercing a new intraday 52-week low of €58.40 and shattering the previous trough of €58.80 set earlier this year. The Relative Strength Index has sunk to 21, deep in oversold territory, and the year-to-date loss now stands at nearly 39%.

The robotics push offers a glimpse of the future. At BMW’s Spartanburg plant in the US, the company is expanding the use of artificial intelligence in logistics with the Figure 03 robot, which will sort and deliver components to the assembly line. Its predecessor, Figure 02, already helped produce more than 30,000 vehicles by handling sheet metal in the body shop. The shift toward automated assembly preparation is designed to reduce monotonous and ergonomically strenuous tasks. Yet on the trading floor, such forward-looking innovation has been completely overshadowed by the profit warning issued in mid-June, when management slashed the full-year margin target for the automotive segment to between 1% and 3% — half the previous guidance — and flagged a slight decline in global deliveries.

Across the German market, however, a tailwind may be building for BMW’s combustion-engine models. According to a study by the Center Automotive Research (CAR), discounts on the 20 best-selling electric cars have narrowed from 19.5% of the list price in January to 17.8% in June 2026, while combustion-engine vehicles are now offered with an average discount of 18.4%. That leaves combustion cars roughly €2,000 cheaper than comparable electric models, up from a €1,300 gap last December. CAR director Ferdinand Dudenhöffer notes that state subsidies in the lower-priced EV segment primarily benefit importers from China, Korea and Europe, giving little boost to German premium manufacturers. A market shift toward combustion cars, he argues, plays directly into BMW’s hands, given the company’s long-standing strategy of offering a diversified technology portfolio rather than going all-in on electric.

The broader competitive landscape remains unsettled. Tesla intends to push weekly production at its Grünheide plant to 7,500 vehicles from October 2026, while Polestar has been barred from the US market for new vehicles from model year 2027 under the Connected Vehicle Rule, which targets cars with Chinese ties. For BMW, the immediate challenge is internal: the company still expects free cash flow in the automotive segment to exceed €2.5 billion, and its share buyback program remains intact, but those supports have not been enough to arrest the slide.

All eyes are now on July 10, when BMW holds its pre-close call, followed by the official half-year report on July 30. Those releases will provide the first concrete data points under the lowered forecast and should show whether headwinds from China are still intensifying or have begun to level off. Until then, the stock remains trapped between a long-term robotics bet and a short-term profit squeeze, with the German market’s renewed appreciation for combustion engines offering a thin — but potentially significant — reed of hope.