The BMW Group is investing around 400 million euros in its Dingolfing vehicle plant for the production of the BMW iNEXT. In doing this, it is preparing for the manufacture of pure battery-electric and highly automated BMW cars at its largest European production location.
With the launch of the BMW iNEXT in 2021, The Dingolfing plant will be capable of producing fully-electric vehicles, plug-in hybrids and models with combustion engines to suit demand on a single assembly line. In August 2019, production was interrupted for four weeks to allow the vehicle plant to forge ahead with various construction and remodelling activities and prepare the location for new models like the BMW iNEXT.
The body shop at the heart of the plant was geared up for the BMW iNEXT several months ago. New production lines are currently being built for the body’s complex floor assembly. The plant benefits to a large extent from its years of expertise in composite and lightweight construction, as well as from structures created for the current generation of the BMW 7 Series. Production at the plant was already set up for handling an innovative mix of steel, aluminium and Carbon Fibre Reinforced Plastic for the iNext model.
SGL Carbon was selected to produce the carbon fibre components along with a number of composite components for the iNEXT. The carbon fibres will be manufactured at the company’s Moses Lake plant then shipped to their Wackersdorf site in Germany where the fabrics will be produced based on the fibres from Moses Lake. The SGL’s Moses Lake facility began as a joint venture between SGL Carbon and BMW. However, SGL Carbon bought out BMW’s 49 per cent stake in the facility back in 2017.
Plant Dingolfing is one of the BMW Group’s 31 production sites worldwide. Around 1,500 BMW 3 Series, 4 Series, 5 Series, 6 Series, 7 Series and 8 Series cars are produced daily at the Dingolfing automotive plant 02.40. In 2018, the plant produced a total of nearly 330,000 vehicles. Around 18,000 employees and 800 trainees currently work at the Dingolfing location.