BMW inaugruates extension of Chinese plant
The Chinese joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) has inaugurated the expansion of its Dadong plant in the city of Shenyang, China. With the completion of the conversion measures, the plant will be able to flexibly produce vehicles with combustion engines, plug-in hybrids or fully electric drive systems.
In February, the “comprehensive expansion” of the plant in the Dadong district and the construction of a new plant in the Tiexi district was announced when BMW took a 75 per cent majority stake in the joint venture.
Regarding the additional production capacities made possible by the expansion of the Dadong plant, the company only says that in Shenyang together with the second BBA plant “Tiexi” more than 700,000 vehicles were produced there last year. This includes the 5 series and X3 for the Chinese market. The electric iX3 is produced in Dadong for the world market.
The Dadong plant now covers an area of 910,000 square metres and includes a press shop, body shop, paint shop and assembly. The latter is integrated with logistics under one roof and houses two independent assembly lines. According to BMW, the body shop houses Kuka’s largest titanium robot, which can grip the entire vehicle underbody with a payload of 1.3 tonnes.
Parallel to the plant expansion, production of the BMW X5 with extended wheelbase for China was also started. As reported, the production capacities for the X5, which was previously only manufactured as a plug-in hybrid at the US plant in Spartanburg, are thus being expanded globally.
BMW also recently unveiled the all-electric 3 Series, which will be launched exclusively in China in May 2022 – as the BMW i3. This model will be built at BMW Brilliance Automotive’s plant in Lydia, a district of Shenyang. There is also a local engine plant where both combustion engines and high-voltage batteries are manufactured.
“Dadong is a testament to the strength of our team,” says Milan Nedeljković, Member of the Board of Management for Production at BMW AG: “Despite the challenges over the last three years, this highly complex project was completed perfectly on schedule. For the BMW Group, our Chinese production sites are of great importance. Last year, almost one third of BMW Group vehicles sold worldwide were produced in Shenyang.”
0 Comments