Dingolfing. The new BMW 5 Series, including the
all-new fully-electric BMW i5, celebrated the official start of
production today at BMW Group Plant Dingolfing, in the presence of
Bavarian Minister-President Markus Söder. The site in Lower Bavaria,
which is celebrating 50 years of BMW automotive production in 2023,
has now ramped up its third fully-electric model in two years,
following the BMW iX and BMW i7. Pure battery-electric vehicles’ share
of total production at the BMW Group’s largest European manufacturing
location is projected to increase to over 40 percent next year.
Milan Nedeljković, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG
responsible for Production, explained in Dingolfing today: “The BMW i5
and our plant in Dingolfing are perfect examples of how the BMW Group
is transforming itself for e-mobility and developing our plants on the
road to the BMW iFACTORY. E-mobility is the new normal at our plants
worldwide. Between 2021 and 2024, we will have integrated a total of
15 fully-electric vehicles into our production network.”
To achieve this, the BMW Group is relying on flexible architectures
and offering most of its models to customers around the world with
different drive train variants. The BMW 5 Series – like the BMW 7
Series and BMW X1 before it – will be available with a fully-electric
drive train or internal combustion engine, or as a plug-in hybrid.
This requires a high degree of flexibility, but allows the company to
utilise its plants’ capacity efficiently and adjust its offering to
customer demand. Nedeljković: “We are following the market. Customer
requirements determine what the actual drive train mix looks like.”
This has been made possible by extensive investments in the production
network. The BMW Group has invested more than one billion euros in
integrating the BMW iX, BMW 7 Series and BMW 5 Series at the
Dingolfing vehicle plant.
As Dingolfing’s core model, BMW 5 Series injects new impetus
Over the next few years, Plant Director Christoph Schröder expects
the launch of the new BMW 5 Series to boost the plant’s production
numbers: “The BMW 5 Series has traditionally been Dingolfing’s core
model and will provide valuable impetus for volumes again this time.”
In 2022, more than 280,000 vehicles came off the assembly line at
Plant Dingolfing. Over the coming year, with the start of production
for the BMW 5 Series Touring and the eighth-generation BMW M5 models,
Schröder expects that number to climb to well over 300,000 vehicles.
Stefan Danner, Deputy Chairman of the Dingolfing Works Council, adds:
“Along with the successful transition to e-mobility, the BMW 5 Series
is central to long-term capacity utilisation at our plant, as well as
securing jobs.”
50 years of BMW cars from Dingolfing
Of the roughly 12 million BMW vehicles built at the location to date,
a total of eight million, i.e. two thirds, are BMW 5 Series models.
This is closely tied to the history of Plant Dingolfing. Exactly 50
years ago, back in September 1973, the very first BMW car rolled off
the production line at the new vehicle plant – a first-generation
tangerine-coloured BMW 520i. Since then, the plant in Lower Bavaria
has become one of the most prominent locations in the automotive
industry – and an engine for economic development in the region. The
annual wage bill for the more than 18,000 BMW employees in Dingolfing
is over one billion euros, and the plant contracts with around 1,000
suppliers from Lower Bavaria. In addition to investing in the
Dingolfing vehicle plant, the BMW Group has also channelled more than
one billion euros into production of electric powertrain components at
the location since 2015.
The vision of the BMW iFACTORY
As with the decision to build Plant Dingolfing during the oil crisis
of the early 1970s, the entrepreneurial vision of the BMW Group is
still very much in evidence at the site today. Thanks to extensive
investment, Plant Dingolfing is extremely well equipped for the future
– and the transition to the BMW iFACTORY is tangible. The best example
of this development in the areas of “lean” and
“digital” is winning the renowned Automotive Lean Production
Award in 2022. The Technology Assembly was recognised for the rollout
of intelligent camera systems for quality monitoring (AIQX), for
example, as well as smart logistics solutions and the IT platform
IPS-i for identification and localisation of objects. Last year, the
plant also piloted Automated Driving In-Plant (AFW), deploying the new
BMW 7 Series along routes between the assembly hall and the finish
area. This is being rolled out on a larger scale with the launch of
the new BMW 5 Series.
In the field of sustainability – the “green” aspect of the BMW
iFACTORY – the site has stepped up its activities in different areas
in recent years: from promoting biodiversity on plant grounds, to
preventing and recycling waste so only around 600 grams of waste for
disposal remain per vehicle produced, up to and including
decarbonisation measures. In addition to sourcing green power, the
location has also signed a far-reaching contract for the supply of
locally-produced heat from regional biomass for heating purposes. This
will meet around half the plant’s process hot water requirements from
the middle of the decade onwards, reducing its CO2
emissions by 10-15% as a result.
Important decisions for the future
Nedeljković sees the recent investments in the transformation of
Dingolfing and the other Bavarian plants as a firm commitment on the
part of the BMW Group to Bavaria as a manufacturing location: “Nine
out of ten BMW vehicles produced are sold to customers outside of
Germany these days. Despite this, we still have more than half our
employees here, especially in Bavaria – and, for all the
internationalisation needed to achieve globally balanced growth,
Bavaria remains an important pillar of the BMW Group and its
production network.”
