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On the evening of November 22, Great Wall announced that the beam automobile production base project, a joint venture between the company and BMW, had been approved by the Development and Reform Commission of Jiangsu Province. The project is scheduled to start in 2020 and completed in 2022.

According to the contents of the announcement, the beam automobile production base project has a total investment of 5.1 billion yuan, and the construction scale is the full export manufacturing of 160000 fuel passenger vehicles and the development of pure electric passenger cars. Among them, the construction of the fuel passenger car manufacturing part includes the stamping workshop,

Welding workshop, painting workshop, final assembly workshop and test track and other facilities, the production of all-export fuel passenger cars; pure electricity

The part of R & D and trial production of motor and passenger vehicles includes R & D rooms such as technology buildings, research and development safety, environmental protection and intelligence.

The new generation of electric vehicles.

It is understood that on July 10, 2018, Great Wall Motor and BMW signed a "Joint Venture contract for the Establishment of Beam Automobile Co., Ltd." in Berlin, Germany. The two sides intend to jointly invest in the establishment of a Sino-foreign joint venture, Beam Automobile Co., Ltd., with a registered capital of 1.7 billion yuan, a total investment of 5.1 billion yuan, each holding 50%, and a planned annual production capacity of 160000 vehicles.

It has been more than a year since Great Wall announced its cooperation with BMW in July last year, during which there has been no progress, and there have even been rumors that the partnership has broken down. Great Wall responded that "the beam car is going well."

Not long ago, MINI's first pure electric car, the MINI Cooper SE, was officially unveiled, with a battery life of only 196km, with a subsidised price of about 209000 yuan. However, in addition to brand advantages, this car has basically no advantage compared with domestic models at the same price.

However, the first model produced by the joint venture between Great Wall and BMW is not the MINI Cooper SE, but an SUV based on the Great Wall electric vehicle platform. There were earlier reports that BMW had decided to turn the MINI Rocketman concept car into an electric car.

In appearance, the front face is also a closed net design, with two yellow horizontal closed lines in the middle as decoration, basically restoring the appearance of MINI. In terms of battery life, it has been revealed that the car is equipped with a 135kw motor, and the total range capacity is less than 300km.

BMW chose to cooperate with Great Wall mainly to develop new energy vehicles. Although BMW already has brilliance BMW in China, cooperation with Great Wall Motor has a different meaning. In addition to meeting the demand for BMW's production of electric cars in China, additional benefits can be made through the technology shared by the new joint venture. For Great Wall, partnering with BMW can increase the brand premium, leading to an increase in sales.

In addition, Daimler also formed a joint venture with Geely in March to build smart into a high-end electric car brand, and the new car will be launched in 2022, further confirming the need for a partnership between BMW and Great Wall.

However, less than two years after the establishment of the joint venture project between Great Wall and BMW, there is still a long way to go in terms of capital investment, process approval and product development before the first model is officially launched.

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