BMW Group Plant Steyr has been developing and manufacturing combustion engines for over 40 years. As a matter of fact, about half of all the BMWs and MINIs you see on the road today are powered by engines made at the factory in Upper Austria. In a bid to prepare for the inevitable electric future, the company is announcing a major investment.
Approximately €1 billion will be spent between now and until the end of the decade at the BMW Group Plant Steyr to engineer and produce electric drivetrains. The automaker doesn’t go into any details, only saying these will be the “next generation of e-drives” assembled in over 600,000 units annually.
Production of traditional gasoline and diesel engines will continue at the Austrian plant. BMW estimates that by 2030, around 50 percent of its workforce of 4,400 employees will be busy with electric drivetrains. The plant’s managing director Alexander Susanek argues this €1 billion investment is the most important milestone since 1979 when the factory became operational. Needless to say, such a large investment secures the jobs of those employed at the facility.
Two assembly lines will be operated to build the rotor and stator, inverter, transmission, and the electric drivetrain’s housing. To make it happen, some of the current production areas will be refurbished while new areas will be built from the ground up. This will include a two-story building for the assembly lines and a second building to enlarge the logistics areas.
Following the massive investment until 2030, BMW Group Plant Steyr will occupy approximately 60,000 square meters. The company doesn’t say which EVs will benefit from the e-drivetrains first, but with the Neue Klasse also arriving in 2025, expect the already confirmed 3 Series-sized model to utilize the tech. The car will be assembled at a new factory in Debrecen, Hungary, with Munich to follow in 2026 with a second NE-based EV.
Source: BMW
