18th May, 2023
BMW Group’s joint venture in China, BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. (BBA), celebrated its 20th anniversary in China on Thursday.
It also announced more investment and localization of its electromobility in the country.
During a press conference, the business stated that the new-generation electric car Neue Klasse will be available in 2026 from its manufacturing base in Shenyang, the capital of northeast China’s Liaoning Province.
On Thursday, a groundbreaking ceremony was held to begin off the construction of BBA’s new battery production plant in Shenyang, which would cost a total of 10 billion yuan (1.43 billion US dollars).
The sixth-generation high-voltage battery is planned to power the new model Neue Klasse.
“I am pleased to announce today the local production of the Neue Klasse in China, 20 years after the first start of production at our joint venture.
“Starting from a small assembly plant with just a few units, our plants in Shenyang have developed into the world’s largest production site,” said Milan Nedeljković, member of the board of management of BMW AG, responsible for production.
Since 2010, nearly 100 billion yuan has been invested in the BMW Shenyang Production Base and its projects, with the production capacity rising to 830,000 units per year.
In 2022 alone, BBA’s purchasing volume in China exceeded 73 billion yuan, of which more than 60 per cent was made in Liaoning Province.
BBA also opened an extension of BMW’s Shenyang R&D Center to boost the company’s electro-mobility development.
In China, the BMW Group has established its largest R&D and innovation network outside Germany, with locations in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Nanjing.
It is also forging cooperation with leading Chinese technology and electro-mobility companies, with a joint innovation centre built in Shanghai to explore the future mobility ecosystem.
BBA now has around 430 local suppliers in China, of which more than 120 are based in Liaoning.
Xinhua/NAN