BMW HQ plant to go all-electric

The global EV push has now struck straight at the heart of BMW, which has confirmed its flagship head-office factory in Germany will become its first electric-only plant from late 2027.

BMW will spend €650 million ($A1.06 billion) converting its Munich factory – situated across the street from the site of the 1972 Olympic Games and alongside the company’s four-cylinder head-office building – into a pure EV factory.

The move will end more than 70 years of internal-combustion engine manufacture at BMW Group Plant Munich, with ICE engine production moving after more than a century to Hams Hall in England and Steyr in Austria, BMW’s board member for production, Milan Nedeljkovic said.

“The Munich plant is an excellent example of our ability to adapt. We are investing here and will produce exclusively all-electric vehicles in our parent plant from the end of 2027,” he confirmed.

“Last year alone, six all-electric models went into production. At the same time, we also set a production record, proving that we are simultaneously able to both deliver and shape the future in our production network.”

BMW’s flagship plant produces around 1000 vehicles a day and has been responsible for what the German premium car-maker regards as its core technological models, including the 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 Series.

BMW released six new EV models last year, including the i4 (pictured), and now every second vehicle from the flagship plant is battery-electric.

It will introduce the Neue Klasse (New Class) BEV in 2026, which will run in parallel to ICE BMWs for a year until they are phased out. The Neue Klasse will also be built at Debrecen in Hungary, Shenyang in China and San Luis Potosi in Mexico, as BMW looks to swamp the premium car world in its new EV family models.

“This BMW plant has constantly realigned itself, from aircraft engines to motorcycles to cars and now a transformation towards e-mobility,” Nedeljkovic said.

“Today the i4 is running together with the other vehicle models and it has the highest share of production at the Munich plant.

“This is about transformation in the motor industry, the BMW Group and the plant. Begin agile means being fast and moving fast, recognising and seizing opportunities and always being flexible.

“Six Neue Klasse BEV derivatives will be launched in different locations, with the first model [an SUV] produced in Debrecen in 2025, and the new sedan here in 2026.”

It was not been a simple decision to reconfigure the flagship plant to all-EV production, with the growth of the Munich taking the site from the city’s outskirts to the heart of the city.

“Because of the urban location in the city, we had to develop a long-term plan for industrialisation with the Munich and Bavarian governments to take into account the needs of the residents of the people of Munich.

“From logistics to roads to noise and energy consumption, we are a Munich company and we have to work closely with the people of Munich to guarantee their future, as well as ours,” Nedeljkovic said.

The upgraded plant will retain its stamping presses and paint shop, but everything else will be renewed to take on board the Neue Klasse’s battery-integration design, BMW Group Plant Munich Director, Peter Weber, said.

“The EV pain points for customers - charging speed and range - will be solved by this car,” Weber insisted.

“We will keep the press works and the paint shop, which are state of the art, and they will be integrated into the production line to make it very flexible.

“The Neue Klasse design focuses on the heart of any BEV vehicle, which is the high-voltage storage system. We can do this without changing a sedan into something like an X3 because the 800-volt energy-storage system will become part of the body.

“We already switched from prismatic cells to cylindrical cells and we need to have the perfect space so we can react if there are new cell forms or technologies without having to redesign the vehicles,” he said.

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