The BMW Group is stepping up its e-mobility ramp-up and setting new standards for the transformation of the industry with its production. Last week, at its largest European manufacturing location in Dingolfing, the company opened the Competence Centre for E-Drive Production. Having produced electric powertrain components in Dingolfing since 2013, the BMW Group is now expanding its capacity significantly. Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder and Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG Oliver Zipse symbolically launched production of the new, highly integrated BMW e-drive, which combines the electric motor, transmission and power electronics in a central housing. The new generation of the BMW e-drive will be used for the first time in the new BMW iX3, which will go into production in China in late summer.
At the Competence Centre in Dingolfing, the BMW Group will produce electric powertrain components such as battery modules, high-voltage batteries and electric motors on eight production lines. Over the coming years, the company will set up four additional lines, which will boost the location’s production capacity significantly.
Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG Oliver Zipse said at the inauguration: “We continue to ramp up electromobility and set standards for the transformation of our industry. By 2022, in Dingolfing alone, we will be able to produce e-drives for more than half a million electrified vehicles per year. At the same time, we will produce a mix of fully-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and models with a combustion engine on a single line, as required by demand, so we can offer our customers the ‘Power of Choice’. This shows how we have paved the way for making the shift in our industry a real success story.”
In the next few years, the production area of the Competence Centre for E-Drive Production will be expanded to ten times the original size: from 8,000 square metres in 2015 to 80,000. The number of employees will also be increased. In the first half of 2020 alone, the workforce grew from 600 to 1,000. Up to 2,000 employees will work in production of e-drives at the Dingolfing location in the medium term.
Read more here.
Source and photo credit: BMW Group
