BMW announced today that it plans to build a new plant from the ground up in Hungary, near the town of Debrecen. The new location will have a capacity of about 150,000 units a year, create about 1,000 jobs and translate into an investment of about €1 billion. The location was chosen because of its excellent infrastructure and positioning inside the EU, BMW’s largest market, accounting for about 45% of its vehicle sales.
“The BMW Group’s decision to build this new plant reaffirms our perspective for global growth. After significant investments in China, Mexico and the USA, we are now strengthening our activities in Europe to maintain a worldwide balance of production between Asia, America and our home continent,” said Harald Krüger, Chairman of the BMW AG Board of Management. “Europe is the BMW Group’s largest production location. In 2018 alone we are investing more than €1 billion in our German sites to upgrade and prepare them for electric mobility.”
Oliver Zipse, BMW AG Board Member for Production, added: “In the future, every BMW Group plant in Europe will be equipped to produce electrified as well as conventional vehicles. Our new plant in Hungary will also be able to manufacture both combustion and electrified BMW models – all on a single production line. It will bring greater capacity to our worldwide production network. When production commences, the plant will set new standards in flexibility, digitalisation and productivity.”
Therefore, the Debrecen plant will be state of the art and part of the BMW Group Strategy NUMBER ONE > NEXT, as it will allow various models to be built on the assembly line, powered by both internal combustion and electric powertrains. That’s paramount for the future of the brand, as the industry is definitely going electric but the switch will have to be slowly rolled out while conventional cars are being phased out.
