The Chinese joint venture brand of German car giant BMW, BMW Brilliance, is expanding the battery factory it opened in China just seven months ago.
The joint venture— the Chinese partner of which is carmaker Brilliance Auto— broke ground for the second phase “comprehensive expansion” project on 28 May.
The partners said the expanded ‘high voltage battery centre’ in Dadong, in northeastern Liaoning Province, will produce “the new, more powerful” lithium-ion batteries to power the fully-electric BMW iX3 model.
From 2020, the BMW iX3 will be built at the partners’ Dadong auto plant.
BMW declined to say what the expanded site’s production capacity would be. However, BBB reported previously that the joint venture’s initial plant could produce an estimated 33,000 sets of battery packs per year.
BMW Brilliance CEO and managing director Dr Johann Wieland, told China’s state Xinhua News Agencylast year the joint venture would assemble the battery packs at the site of its headquarters in Shenyang, several kilometres from Dadong.
BMW board of management member Oliver Zipse said the battery project “enables us to follow the increasing demand for electro mobility in China”— and underlined the German group’s “commitment to China”.
Three battery plants in Germany the US and China supply local production of BMW’s electrified vehicles.
BMW currently produces cars with combustion engines on the same lines as plug-in hybrids at 10 locations worldwide. In the future, production of fully-electric vehicles will also be integrated into existing manufacturing structures.
BMW Brilliance Automotive was founded in 2003.