BMW announced this week a more than €300 million expansion of its Leipzig factory, which will enable an annual production capacity increase by “approx. 100,000 units.”
It will include a 54% increase of BMW i vehicle production, BMW’s electric vehicle brand.
While it’s a significant increase percentage-wise, BMW i production still only represents a small fraction of the overall capacity increase.
It’s going from 130 units per day to 200 units per day.
They wrote in a press release this week:
The main focus of activities at the plant is to increase annual production capacity by approx. 100,000 units, from the current 250,000 to about 350,000 p.a. in 2020. Production of BMW i models will rise much earlier, in autumn of this year, from 130 to 200 units a day to meet the welcome growth in demand.
That includes the BMW i3, which is offered in an all-electric version and with a gas-powered range extender, and the BMW i8, which is a plug-in hybrid.
The German automaker says that it is learning from its experience building EVs in Leipzig for the rest of its production network.
Plant Director Hans-Peter Kemser explained:
We are taking the invaluable knowledge from Plant Leipzig to facilities across our production network. Current production of the BMW i3 and BMW i8, in independent structures, will continue unaffected. Over the longer term, Leipzig will gradually develop further, capitalising on the opportunities of digitalisation and becoming more flexible to enable vehicles with any type of powertrain to be produced together on a single assembly line,
As we reported earlier this month, BMW claims to have now delivered ‘more than a quarter of a million ‘electrified vehicles’, but that includes every car with an electric motor.
The company delivered 2,665 BMW i3 electric vehicles last month.
On the all-electric front, BMW is promising two new all-electric vehicles to come out in the next two years: the all-electric Mini and the all-electric BMW iX3 SUV.
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