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BMW has announced that it will build the funky Neue Klasse saloon in its Munich facility from 2026; a year after that, the factory will produce nothing but electric vehicles. Having built its first combustion-engined car in 1952 (a 501), BMW’s most famous assembly plant will be EV only from 2027. 

It’s been coming for a little while, of course, even if putting a date on these sorts of things inevitably makes the feeling more urgent. Electrified cars have rolled down the line with pure ICE cars since 2015, when the first 3 Series PHEVs were made; the i4 has been in production at Munich since 2021.

But while electric cars already represent a significant part of the product portfolio (and it’s growing by the month), it’s a huge moment at the beating heart of BMW. It’ll mean huge investment, too, with €650m (£560m) being spent on overhauling the factory for its new future. It’ll be the first location in BMW Group’s range of production facilities to make the transition to purely E-mobility. Many more will surely follow, including a new plant in Debrecen, Hungary.

Munich will be made into a so-called iFACTORY, because nothing associated with EVs can possibly escape a lower-case ‘i’ and too many capital letters. The transformation will continue alongside regular production; around 1,000 cars are completed every single day, so a shutdown wouldn’t be viable. BMW says a key tenet of the iFACTORY approach is a ‘comprehensive digitalisation with a holistic approach to the interaction between people, processes and systems’. Hopefully the reality is as seamless and cohesive as that’s attempting to sound. 

Much as with the money being spent at Oxford for Mini, this new investment secures the future of a historic facility and represents a vote of confidence in the location. They might be quite different BMWs coming out of Munich in the not-too-distant future (ditto the Minis from Oxford), but BMWs will continue to be made there for a long time yet. That’s probably the most important bit of news. 

Milan Nedeljkovi, BMW’s board member for production, said: “The Munich plant is an excellent example of our ability to adapt… Last year alone, six all-electric models went into production. At the same time, we also set a production record, proving that we are simultaneously able to both deliver and shape the future in our production network.” It’ll be business as usual at Munich for the foreseeable, then. It’s just that business will very soon be nothing but electric cars.

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