The scourge of the Covid-19 health pandemic has forced the brand’s expansion plans to change. One of them has been BMW, which has recognized that the new Hungarian factory will delay its launch until 2025. A new headquarters in which it will produce a new generation of electric cars.
The Bavarians were expected to join other German brands in the production of new cars in Hungary in 2020, but the scourge of the Covid-19 health pandemic wiped out these plans. A ‘dream’ for BMW to come since 2018 when it announced its intention to open a new production site in a large area in the town of Debrecen. The first in Europe since 2000.
The plans have changed more than expected, because production was scheduled to start in 2023, and now it will start in 2025. It is impossible to do it before, since the works have not started and there is no installation, but yes have confirmed that construction will start in 2022. BMW already has a person in charge for this new location, the same one who directed the works of the new factory in Leipzig, Germany, in 2015, and which was inaugurated five years later. A true specialist, they say, in this matter.
BMW to build electric cars at the Hungarian factory
The Debrecen complex will feature all the necessary facilities for a complete production, which means that from the stamping, everything will be done in Hungary, with offices, a training center and warehouses for the assembly lines, a pressing workshop, another body shop and one more for painting.
Audi, Mercedes and Suzuki already manufacture certain models in this country. BMW estimated uannual production of 150,000 units of a series of models hitherto unknown, but which may be a few thousand more knowing that the plant will be dedicated to the manufacture of electric cars. A new generation of models developed on the new “Neue Klasse” modular platform.
This new architecture will debut in 2025 with the new model that will replace the current BMW i3, adding a new batch of zero-emission models of different scales, so the plant will house the manufacture of different models equipped with front, rear, total wheel drive, with one or two electric motors and a powerful battery between the axles that will offer up to 700 kilometers of autonomy. Even so, the German firm has time to plan which models in particular it will assign to this new factory, but it aims at the electric ones of greater volume.