AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/19 Report--

On October 18, the Global Times reported that BMW China insiders have revealed that BMW will invest another 10 billion yuan to expand its high voltage battery production center in Shenyang and expand its battery project investment in China. BMW Shenyang High Voltage Battery production Center is the third BMW Group in the world and the first complete power battery center outside Germany. So far, BMW Chinese officials have not commented on the above reports.

According to public data, brilliance BMW Power Battery Center, located in the Shenyang Tiexi powertrain plant, opened in 2017, integrating battery research, production and testing. BMW Group is the first battery center outside Germany with complete battery equipment capabilities, and it is also one of the BMW Group's three major battery production bases in the world. it not only meets the vehicle power battery production, but also integrates the production of prototype power batteries.

In 2020, the second phase of brilliance BMW Power Battery Center was officially unveiled, becoming the world's first production base for BMW fifth-generation power batteries. At present, the fifth-generation power batteries equipped with the new BMW iX3 and the new BMW i3 are produced by brilliance BMW Power Battery Center Phase II.

At the same time, on the same day, BMW Group officials also responded to "BMW Group's plan to transfer the production line of pure electric MINI from its plant in Oxford, UK to China." In response, BMW officials listed the next generation of major MINI models to be produced at the Oxford plant, including MINI Cooper three-door and five-door models as well as MINI convertibles, but BMW did not mention the production location of the pure electric model MINI Aceman. BMW said: "information on production plans will be released in due course in the future."

A few days ago, after it was revealed that BMW Group plans to transfer the production line of pure electric MINI from its factory in Oxford to China, BMW China responded that the plant in Oxford, UK would suspend the production of electric models, but would not stop producing MINI models, and it was clear that the beam car in partnership with Great Wall would produce pure electric MINI. Stefanie Wurst, head of MINI, said in an interview with foreign media that the Oxford plant in the UK was not ready for electric car production and that the next-generation all-electric model MINI Aceman would be produced in China as part of a joint venture between Great Wall and the group.

In response, Wu Szhuo, senior vice president of the MINI brand of BMW Group, previously said that the reason for stopping production of MINI electric models at the Oxford factory in the UK is that the factory is inefficient and electric vehicles and fuel vehicles are produced on the same production line. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National passenger car Market Information Association, said that the British industrial chain is incomplete and the cost is high, so it is not a good place to develop electric cars. BMW Group plans to stop producing MINI electric models at its plant in Oxford, England and transfer the production line to China from a cost point of view. In addition, the transformation of the German automobile industry to electrification highlights the importance of China's big market.

The MINI brand was launched by the British Motor Company (BMC) in 1959, and BMW became the actual control of MINI in 1994. Under this background, the production of MINI models exceeds one million. BMW redesigned the new MINI in 2001, and since then there have been MINI One,MINI Cooper,MINI Cooper S models in the MINI series. The MINI Cooper SE is the first electric car under the MINI brand, which was born in a factory in Oxford and exported to the global market. In 2018, BMW and Great Wall Motor set up a joint venture company, Light Motors, with a total investment of about 5.1 billion yuan. The construction site is Zhangjiagang City, Jiangsu Province. Piling construction in June 2020 will be completed in 2022, with a planned annual production capacity of 160000 vehicles. It has become BMW's first pure electric vehicle joint venture in the world. The BMW MINI brand launched a new brand strategy in 2021. According to the plan, MINI will produce two pure electric models in China in 2023; the MINI brand will launch the last fuel model in 2025, after which it will focus entirely on pure electric models; and the global proportion of MINI pure electric vehicles will reach 50% in 2027. On July 27th, 2022, the MINI brand's first pure electric urban cross-border concept car, MINI Concept Aceman, was officially unveiled, which is located in a cross-border small SUV, which will fill the market gap between the three-door version of MINI and MINI COUNTRYMAN.

At present, China has become the world's largest new energy market and an important market for BMW Group electrification. In February this year, brilliance's share ratio change officially took effect, raising BMW's shareholding to 75%, and the validity of the joint venture has since been extended to 2040. At the same time, BMW announced a series of measures to increase investment in the Chinese market, including the full expansion of its existing plant in the Dadong District of Shenyang and the opening of the Lida plant in Shenyang in June. The Lida plant became the largest single investment by BMW in China with a value of 15 billion yuan.

If the news that BMW has invested 10 billion yuan to expand its high voltage battery production center in Shenyang is true, it means that BMW will achieve further development in the Chinese market. Of course, in addition to BMW, including Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and other German car companies have also increased their efforts to invest in the Chinese market in recent years. A few days ago, Volkswagen invested 16.8 billion yuan to set up a new joint venture in China to speed up the development of advanced driving assistance systems and self-driving systems for the Chinese market. This investment is also the largest single investment in the 40 years since Volkswagen entered the Chinese market. Earlier this year, Audi FAW New Energy vehicle Co., Ltd. held a groundbreaking ceremony, which is Audi's first luxury pure electric factory in China, in which Audi invested about 2.6 billion euros.

In China, the world's largest market for new energy vehicles, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in China in the first three quarters of 2022 grew by more than 110% to 4.567 million compared with the same period last year, surpassing sales in 2021, while BMW delivered 92873 BMW and MINI vehicles in the Chinese market, with sales of pure electric vehicles up 65% from a year earlier, according to the China Automobile Association.

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