BMW has announced that they will open a new high-voltage battery pack production site to its network. The new facility, which will open in the middle of 2021, will be located at Leipzig in Eastern Germany, which is 99 miles (160km) southwest of Berlin.
Leipzig is also the location where BMW’s much acclaimed i3 electric car has been produced since 2013, so it’s no coincidence that the company located their battery plant here. The new 10,000 square metre plant will join the company’s existing facility in Dingolfing in southern Bavaria, along with facilities in Spartanburg, USA, and Shenyang, China. BMW plan to invest €100 million (£91 million/$117 million) by 2022 and create over 150 jobs.
The batteries are supplied by external manufacturers including CATL, Samsung and SDI, because BMW does not produce its own battery cells. BMW then test and assemble their own set-ups, which are called modules, in their highly automated facilities.
This has been a deliberate move by BMW as the sale of electric cars continue to increase. The company believes that by 2021 one in four BMWs sold will have an electric powertrain, and this figure increases to one in three by 2025. By 2023 BMW hope to have 25 electrified models in their line up with at least half being all-electric.
Michael Nikolaides, Head of Planning and Production Engines and E-Drives, said:
“We are consistently ramping up the production of e-drives to meet our ambitious electric mobility targets. Just recently, we opened our Competence Centre for E-drive Production in Dingolfing and doubled the production capacity for high-voltage batteries at BMW Brilliance Automotive in China by opening another battery centre. Now we are also stepping up our battery production output in Germany.”
