BMW is transforming its plants as it prepares to add electric vehicles to all of its segments in the coming years.
This includes investing 400 million euros (approximately $437 million) in a new vehicle plant at the automaker’s main production site in Munich, Germany.
To make way for the new plant, which is expected to build some of BMW’s Neue Klasse EVs, an existing plant where the automaker built 4-, 6-, 8-, and 12-cylinder engines over the past six decades will be removed.
The plant is the sole location for BMW engine production in Germany, and it built its last engine, a V-8, earlier this month. The news was first reported on Nov. 10 by local outlet BR24.
BMW isn’t giving up on the internal-combustion engine just yet. The automaker is continuing to build engines at plants in Austria and the United Kingdom. BMW has been relocating equipment and tooling for engine production out of Germany since 2020.
While BMW no longer builds engines in Germany, production capacity for EV components, including motors and batteries, is being added. BMW already builds electric powertrains and battery packs in Dingolfing, Germany, and is continuing to expand capacity at the site.
Plants in the German cities of Leipzig and Regensburg have also been upgraded to handle production of EV components in recent years, and the engine plant in Austria has also been prepared for production of EV components.
