BMW Group has partnered with Great Wall Motor to build a joint manufacturing facility in China, where BMW will produce fully-electric models of the Mini brand. The plant will have an initial capacity of up to 160,000 vehicles per year, which will require around 3,000 employees after the ramp-up phase.
Both partners will together invest around €650 million (over ¥5 billion) for the new joint venture named Spotlight Automotive Limited. The construction phase is planned for 2020 to 2022. The groundbreaking event took place in the city of Zhangjiagang in China’s Jiangsu Province, the location of the new automotive plant.
However, the first fully-electric Mini which made its debut in July this year, will be built at the Oxford facility (UK). Apparently, over 78,000 people have expressed their interest in the electric Mini. The future models will be built at the aforementioned new facility, including the BEVs for Great Wall Motor.
BMW said that the Zhangjiagang was chosen as the location of the Spotlight plant because of its solid supplier network, skilled workforce and good infrastructure. Jiangsu is also one of the leading provinces for finance, education and technology.
By the end of 2021, BMW aims to offer 5 fully-electric production vehicles. Next year, the production of the fully-electric iX3 will begin at the Shenyang plant (China), followed in 2021 by the iNEXT, which will be built at the Dingolfing plant (Germany). The i4 is also due to go into series production at the Munich plant in 2021.
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