BERLIN — BMW is investing 650 million euros ($711 million) to transform its most important plant in Munich to completely produce EVs from the top of 2027, the carmaker stated on Wednesday, a significant stepping stone within the transition to the electrical age.
It’s placing up 4 buildings together with a brand new car meeting line and physique store, and has moved conventional engine manufacturing to Nice Britain and Austria, with 1,200 workers retrained or moved to different areas. BMW has been constructing internal-combustion automobiles on the website since 1922.
In contrast to different carmakers, BMW has not set its personal goal for ending manufacturing of combustion engine automobiles, however is developing in opposition to European Union regulation which successfully bans the sale of latest petrol and diesel automobiles within the bloc from 2035.
All-electric automobiles made up 15% of the Munich-based carmaker’s gross sales in 2023, a ratio it expects to rise to a 3rd by 2026.
Carmakers from Mercedes-Benz to Volkswagen have warned in latest months that EV gross sales aren’t creating as quick as anticipated, with financial pressures weighing on shoppers simply as provide chain bottlenecks that had held up manufacturing started to ease.
BMW offered its ‘Neue Klasse’ preview on the IAA automotive present final September, representing a multibillion-euro effort by BMW to leap the expertise hole with opponents like Tesla and different EV makers.
The automotive, roughly the scale of the carmaker’s present bestselling 3-series mannequin line, shall be constructed on the Munich plant from 2026 in parallel with combustion engine automobiles.
It’s going to even be produced at BMW’s new plant underneath building in Debrecen, Hungary, in addition to in Shenyang, China, and San Luis Potosi in Mexico.