BMW is ramping up its efforts in the field of electrified car production. The industry and customers seemingly can’t wait anymore and the Bavarian brand has to adapt on the fly. Therefore, BMW now has three manufacturing locations for electric car components in Germany right now, after starting work at two additional plants this week. Today, the Regensburg and Leipzig plants are also producing components for the electric drivetrains of various BMW models.
The BMW Plant in Leipzig started series production of battery modules on today, while the Regensburg plant began coating battery cells for high-voltage batteries back in April. High-voltage batteries will also be produced in Regensburg from 2022. “We expect at least 50 percent of the vehicles we deliver to our customers worldwide to be fully electric by 2030,” said Michael Nikolaides, Senior Vice President Production Engines and E-Drives. “And we are systematically expanding our production network for electric drive trains in response to this.”
The two new plants will benefit from investments of 250 million Euros in order to be able to keep up with the demand from the assembly lines for electric cars. The modules made here are part of the fifth-generation eDrive technology wave and will be embedded in cars like the BMW iX and i4 which are bound to reach dealerships later this year. BMW is investing a total of around 790 million euros in expanding production capacity for drivetrain components for electrified vehicles at its Dingolfing, Leipzig, Regensburg and Steyr locations between 2020 and 2022.
The BMW Leipzig plant had a very interesting evolution over the years. This is where, back in 2013, the production of the i3 and i8 kicked off. Now that the i8 has gone out of production, the plant will be using space that used to be taken up by the production of the PHEV sportscar to manufacture battery modules. The Regensburg plant, on the other hand, has been making electrified cars for a while now and will be in charge of making the upcoming X1 EV too in the near future.
