New plant for electric vehicles in Munich
The German car manufacturer BMW is increasingly moving towards e-mobility. Diesel and gasoline engine production is to be relocated to Steyr in Austria and Hams Hall in Great Britain by 2024. The Munich plant is thus gradually being put on ice.
The 1000 employees affected will be offered other jobs at BMW in Munich or other locations in Bavaria, said Production Director Milan Nedeljkovic on Wednesday. About 8000 BMW employees work in Munich so far.
In future, the area of the Munich production facility will be used exclusively for the manufacture of electric vehicles. It is scheduled to go into operation in 2026 and cost 400 million euros. Works Council Chairman Manfred Schoch said: "This decision is a model for a successful transformation in German industry. The construction of a new assembly plant at BMW's almost 100-year-old main plant shows "that transformation, if approached strategically and courageously, can secure and expand industrial jobs even in the middle of a big city".
From the end of 2021, the fully electric BMW i4 is to start in Munich and the BMW iX in Dingolfing, while the fully electric versions of the 7 and 5 Series are in the starting blocks in Dingolfing. In 2022, the Regensburg plant will start production of the X1 as a combustion engine, which will also be offered with a fully electric drive. In Leipzig, the Mini Countryman is to follow in 2023 as a combustion engine and an electric car.
The BMW Board of Management does not see the Mini plant in Oxford threatened. "We will also be represented there for the next ten years," said Nedeljkovic. In China, the e-mini plant will be completed in 2022 with the partner Great Wall, and local production of the X5 is planned. The new Asia-Pacific customs union will certainly lead to changes in production
BMW's goal is to build fully electric vehicles from 2021.
"We are consistently implementing our electrification strategy. By the end of 2022, each of our German plants will produce at least one fully electric vehicle," said Manager Nedeljkovic. He added that the Group was "continuously developing the Munich plant in the direction of electromobility and creating efficient and competitive production structures for this purpose".
BMW has converted its plants to produce internal combustion, hybrid and electric cars on the same line, enabling it to respond flexibly to customer requirements. By the end of 2021, he said, he will have reduced fixed costs by half a billion euros a year on a sustained basis.
