BMW announced the completion of the renovation of the Munich plant.

    On September 10, local time, the BMW Group issued a press release on its global official website stating that its "family factory" in Munich has been remodeled and can begin production of the pure electric car i4.

    According to the official website, the Munich plant is a subsidiary of the BMW Group. It was established in 1922 and has 7,800 employees. It is mainly responsible for the production of cars and engines. BMW said that after six weeks of intensive modification work, mass production of vehicles has resumed, and about 5,000 employees have returned to the production line.

    The head of the plant, Robert Engelhorn, called the project "the largest transformation in the history of the assembly plant." Robert said that the plant can now mass-produce the all-electric BMW i4 on the same production line as diesel, gasoline and hybrid vehicles. "A new era is about to begin."

    According to BMW, the total investment in R&D and transformation in the Munich plant amounts to 200 million euros (about 1.62 billion yuan). Between 2015 and 2018, BMW has invested a total of 700 million euros (about 5.66 billion yuan) for Build a new and efficient painting workshop and expand the production capacity of the body workshop.

    BMW also stated that in recent weeks, ensuring the tightness of the production workshop has brought another special challenge for the entire team. To ensure airtightness means that the conversion and installation during the production process will be extremely difficult, and the previous production system must be completely dismantled. In order to solve this problem, the BMW team used digital tools to simulate the construction and operation of the production line through virtual reality.

    BMW claims that most of the i4's production process can be carried out on the existing body shop system, but because the electric drive and high-voltage battery emissions have changed the traditional car structure, additional assembly systems are required for the interior floor assembly and the rear. In the workshop, the battery pack weighing approximately 550 kg will be installed on the car body by a brand new, fully automatic assembly system. After installation, the camera system on the production line will automatically check whether the battery pack is placed correctly. The entire installation process, including the fixing of bolts, is fully automatic.

    According to BMW, the focus of the transformation is to integrate the i4 production line into the existing infrastructure, while also preparing for the mass production of the BMW M3. Since then, the Munich plant will not only produce the BMW i4, but also the hybrid BMW 3 series sedan, the BMW 3 series wagon, and the new generation of BMW M3.

    Unlike Volkswagen's huge investment in the development of a flexible electrification platform MEB, BMW has not yet created an exclusive electrification platform, but has transformed the existing fuel vehicle platform, so upgrading the factory is imperative.

    In 2018, the BMW Group announced that it would invest 200 million euros in its Munich headquarters plant within four years to expand the production capacity of electric vehicles. At the same time, BMW will also set up a battery research and development center in the plant.

    The electrification strategy announced by the BMW Group in 2017 shows that 25 plug-in hybrid and pure electric models are expected to be launched in 2025, of which 12 are pure electric models. In 2019, BMW announced the speed-up strategy, announcing that it will realize the layout of 25 new energy vehicles by 2023, two years ahead of the original plan.