BMW is funneling millions of dollars of investment cash into its main Munich plant to get it ready for a wholly-electric future. The automaker says the Munich facility will only build EVs from the end of 2027 and is spending €650 million ($711 million) on the site to prepare it for the switch.
The flagship factory, known officially as BMW Group Plant Munich, turned 100 last year, and began life building aircraft engines and motorcycles. It started producing cars from 1952 and is currently home to to lynchpin vehicles like the 3-Series. But it also builds the electric i4, a model which BMW last year said accounted for one quarter of the roughly 1,000-unit-per day overall plant production.
EVs now account for a significant 15 percent of BMW’s global sales, demand growing by 74.4 percent in 2023, and sure to explode again when BMW’s Neue Klasse cars start filtering through. The automaker expects EVs to make up 30 percent of all sales by 2026, the year the first NK vehicle, an X3-sized electric SUV makes its debut. Unsurprisingly, BMW is clearing space at the Munich site to build the SUV and also the electric 3-Series that will share its NK platform and powertrains, and launches a year later.
Related: BMW Posts Record Group Sales, EV Deliveries Up 74 Percent
Initially, the new electric cars will be build alongside the current combustion models at Munich, but BMW says the plant will go EV-only from the end of 2027. To make space for the new EV lines BMW has moved its engine-building operation to the Hams-Hall site in the UK and Steyr in Austria. It’s also creating four brand new buildings at Munich, including a new assembly line and body shop.
BMW is expected to launch another combustion 3-Series soon after the electric Three arrives and based on an updated version of today’s CLAR platform, but exactly where it will be built remains unclear. One option is the San Luis Potosi plant in Mexico, which already builds the 3-Series sedan for North America.
