DINGOLFING (Germany): BMW Group says that its Dingolfing manufacturing site will be where the iNEXT electrified vehicle will be produced and will also be the where mobility gets redefined once more as production for electrified maintains its year-on-year doubling-effect to a current 9% of total production output as of 2018.

With Dingolfing plant to be the iNEXT 's birthing site from 2021 onwards, extensive investments have already been mobilised to prepare for the model and the expected expansion to meet demand for electrified vehicles.



"The BMW iNEXT brings together all key automotive technologies: it is fully electric, fully connected and highly automated. It is the technology flagship for the future of the entire BMW Group. And we are proud that this car of the future will be built here at our (Dingolfing) plant,” said new BMW Group plant director Ilka Horstmeier since November, 2018.

The iNEXT will be the first all-electric BMW to be produced in Dingolfing, where it will be assembled on a single line together with plug-in hybrid and combustion-engine models.

According to Horstmeier, the new addition would also allow the location to play a pioneering role in the future-oriented field of autonomous driving.


“We want to, and will, emerge as a winner in our industry’s technological transformation. And we will continue to pioneer future topics such as e-mobility and autonomous driving.”

In this context, the plant director announced that “we will increase the number of Dingolfing-based jobs in the production of e-drive components several times over in the next few years – to a total of up to 2,000.”

In 2018, the share of electrified models more than doubled year-on-year, to around 9% of the total production output. Almost 30,000 plug-in hybrids of the BMW 5 Series and 7 Series rolled off the assembly lines at the Dingolfing plant.



A total of around 330,000 vehicles were built at the location in 2018, including the new BMW 8 Series’ coupe and convertible variants -making Dingolfing BMW Group's largest European production site in terms of production output once more.

According to Horstmeier, the number of jobs is to rise from its current 600 to 2,000 employees in the long term with Dingolfing already supplying the BMW Group's global vehicle plants with batteries and electric motors for the production of electrified vehicles and next year, the company's new fifth-generation electric drives will roll off the production line.


Besides managing the production output and the launch of the new BMW 7 Series and 8 Series models, 2019 is above all a year of new beginnings, renewal and shaping the future for the new plant director.

“Today, we are benefitting from decisions taken five years or more ago. It is now up to us to do both as well: master our day-to-day business perfectly while at the same time taking the right decisions for the future. This is the task I intend to tackle together with the entire Dingolfing team," said Horstmeier.



 

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