When plant manager Peter Weber wants to explain what makes his job so difficult these days, he points to two walls: “Behind this wall is our new paint shop,” he says, “and behind this we are currently putting up the new body shop. And there A conveyor tunnel runs across the construction site, through which 1,000 bodies travel every day from our old body shop to our new paint shop. It must not be damaged or even shaken.”
Weber is managing a complex construction project these days, but that’s just the smaller part of what’s involved BMW in the next three years: the factory surrounded by the city will be largely demolished and rebuilt for a total of 650 million euros; In addition to the paint shop and body shop, there are three new production halls. From 2027, the main factory will only produce electric cars.
Hall 140 will also be demolished in the coming months; built until 1962 to produce the then Neue Klasse, which saved the company from bankruptcy. As if to say goodbye, BMW once again invited people to an event in the remains that had not yet been demolished, also to have Weber and production director Milan Nedeljković explain from the old building how the conversion should take place while operations continue.
“It won’t be rebuilt because of the new class”
Today, almost 1,000 cars roll off the assembly line in Munich every day, including the conventional BMW 3 Series and the fully electric i4 – all on the same production line. Series production of cars is scheduled to begin at the main plant in 2026 Electric platform dubbed ‘New Class’ start. This is a sedan about the size of the 3 Series and i4. A year later, the plant will be the first BMW location to use combustion engines completely on battery cars (BEV) transfer.
“Munich is not being rebuilt because of the New Class,” said Nedelković, “but we are doing the complete New Class integration because the assembly hall had to be renovated anyway due to its age.” No other work is being renovated so extensively. Only one new factory in Debrecen, Hungary, is fully designed for electric cars. An SUV will be manufactured there in 2025 as the first model based on a new class, which is currently undergoing final tests and to which only details need to be lashed.
Preparations for the renovation of the main plant have been going on for some time. To make space, engine production has already been completely relocated to Hams-Hall in England and Steyr in Austria. 1,200 employees were retrained or transferred.
“This is a great opportunity for us at the plant,” said Weber. “We can reduce complexity and simplify processes, also thanks to the early collaboration between development and production when creating the new series.” This means that fewer different screwing, welding and gluing technologies are used. The number of man-hours per car is expected to fall by a quarter compared to 2019.