Berlin, October 22 (BNA) The production director of BMW (BMWG.DE) said on Friday at a conference on the occasion of the start of production of its i4 electric model.
Head of production Dr. Milan Nedelkovic said that ICE cars currently made in Munich will be produced at BMW plants in Austria and the UK in the future, adding that by next year at least half of the cars produced in Munich will be electric.
BMW has set itself a goal of having at least 50% of global new car sales run electric by 2030, and CEO Oliver Zipse said at a conference last week that the company would be ready to offer all-electric offerings if any market banned internal combustion engines by then. .
The company said the i4 battery-powered electric vehicle was built on a joint assembly line with ICE and hybrid models such as the BMW 3 Series Sedan and Touring, a shift that has cost 200 million euros ($233 million) of investment in production infrastructure.
A similar hybrid assembly line is already being built at the automaker’s Dingolfing plant, which produces the BMW iX along with the hybrid and ICE models.
Factory president Peter Weber said the new model will have priority in the decision-making process on where to allocate rare chips. Nedelijkovic added that the company was well stocked in other raw materials.
BMW said earlier it expected to produce 70,000 to 90,000 fewer cars than it could have sold this year due to the chip shortage that has plagued automakers around the world.
It also committed to reducing emissions from transport logistics at the Munich plant, the company’s largest, to zero in the next few years, without giving a specific date.
This will be achieved through increased use of rail transport and battery-powered trucks to move vehicles in and around the plant, she said.
NS