Series production of the i3 to start in Munich in August
BMW’s new factory logic
The Munich parent plant shows just how much automotive production is changing: it is a precise, finely balanced system of data, equipment and material flows – with employees’ know-how and commitment turning it into robust industrial practice.
No body, no doors, no seat, no wiring loom: at the Munich parent plant, a virtual vehicle takes shape before the first sheet metal is ever formed. During the so‑called Common Function Tests, a car moves through the factory cycle by cycle, even though it cannot be seen. And yet it is already setting the whole system in motion. Production is rehearsing the real thing long before the first actual component is installed.
This already contains the real message of this launch. Factories today are no longer just built and ramped up. They are simulated in advance, validated digitally and reprogrammed during ongoing operations. In Munich, the i3 is therefore far more than the second model of the Neue Klasse. It serves BMW as a real‑world test of how the company is fundamentally reorganising its production.
The launch begins with a factory that checks itself
The start of production begins with a dry run which, at first glance, looks unappealingly technical but in fact reveals the core of the project. In the new body shop and new assembly area, the systems were initially tested without any components. During the so‑called Common Function Test, an invisible vehicle is created cycle by cycle because all process steps are already running fully in the system. The car is not there yet, but the factory already has to work. In doing so, BMW pulls the classic launch stress forward: first the digital and physical validation of the process chain, then pre‑series, then series production.
Peter Weber, head of the BMW Group plant in Munich, describes the current status in very matter-of-fact terms: “The production facilities are ready to go in all technologies and our employees are already being trained for production.” However, there is more behind this wording than a progress report. It points to a manufacturing system that has to validate itself before the first customer vehicle is sold.
The new production is created first in the digital space
The main novelty lies in the consistency with which the plant is conceived as a digitally networked system. The new body shop and new assembly line were designed from the outset on a digital basis; existing facilities in the press shop and paint shop are integrated into the virtual factory, BMW’s iFactory philosophy. This made it possible to carry out functional tests virtually long before the physical ramp-up. Added to this are AI-supported quality checks, automated surface inspections, self-reporting conveyor systems, digital live tracking in assembly and a logistics set-up that automatically coordinates a large proportion of its transport missions.
Highly automated lines run in the press shop, able to produce several tens of thousands of components per day. In the body shop, around 800 new industrial robots take over the joining operations; the number of joining methods has been reduced to five, saving process complexity. In the paint shop, AOI and AOB systems detect the smallest surface deviations digitally and in some cases correct them directly during the ongoing process. In assembly, vehicles, tools and equipment are connected to the production system; during its build, the i3 already reports the status of up to 20,000 characteristics back digitally. Roller test rigs therefore become superfluous.
Munich is not just building a new model, but a different plant
This is precisely why this launch is more than a model start. In Munich, BMW is not simply pushing a new electric vehicle into an existing plant. The main plant is being structurally realigned. In August 2026, series production of the BMW i3, the second model of the Neue Klasse, will start there. A year later, the production portfolio in Munich is scheduled to be fully converted to all-electric vehicles of the Neue Klasse. This will make Munich the first existing plant within the BMW Group to complete this full transition.
Dr Milan Nedeljković, member of the board of management of BMW AG, production, sets this in a strategic context: “With the BMW iFACTORY we have developed a consistent strategic framework for our production. We have put all our plants on track for the upcoming launches and invested heavily in technologies, digitalisation and AI.” In this sense, Munich is not only the main plant, but also a shop window and stress test at the same time.
At the operational level, the ambition becomes even clearer. Nedeljković points out that BMW has reduced unit costs in its plants by up to 25 percent over the past five years and continues to offer the flexibility to implement changes to sequences and specifications up to six days before the start of production. This agility is unusual in the industry – and is the prerequisite for a principle that is particularly visible in Munich: production follows the market.
The conversion took place in the middle of series production
How deep this transformation goes becomes clear when you look at the plant itself. In just 18 months, old buildings were dismantled on around one third of the plant area and new structures for body shop, assembly, logistics and utilities were erected. And this did not happen on a greenfield site, but while up to 1,000 units of the high-volume models were being produced per day. The conversion therefore resembled and still resembles less a new build than open-heart surgery.
Weber describes the industrial direction as follows: “We have completely rethought the entire value stream from the supplier to the finished customer vehicle and examined and optimised every single process in detail. Today our plant is more efficient, more flexible and more digitalised than ever before.” Production, logistics, supply chain and qualification are thus combined into a single factory logic.
Suppliers must integrate more deeply into the system
For suppliers in particular, this conversion is more than a technical modernisation. Anyone supplying into such a tightly scheduled system no longer just brings parts to the line, but must fit into a digitally secured value stream. This concerns standards, traceability, error resilience and the ability to safeguard processes in real time. Battery, drivetrain, wiring harness, logistics and quality data are more closely linked than in classical vehicle projects.
This can also be read in economic terms. Peter Weber says: “With the start of production of the BMW i3, we will reduce production costs at the Munich site by a further ten percent.” For suppliers, this means, quite soberly: less demand for singular innovations and more for robust contributions to efficiency, simplification and zero-defect capability. Those who introduce variability, rework or media discontinuities into the system will find it harder in such launches.
The Neue Klasse factory also changes work in the plant
The new factory logic is at the same time an integral part of the personnel and skills strategy. Board member for human resources and real estate, Ilka Horstmeier, classifies the transformation accordingly: “We train employees before pre-series production even begins. Parts of the qualification process initially take place in virtual environments.”
In body shop, automated parts supply means that employees are increasingly decoupled from the line cycle and shift their focus more towards monitoring, control and quality assurance activities. In assembly, ergonomically optimised workstations and simplified processes are the main focus, in order to reduce physical strain and increase process stability.
At the same time, digital tasks are becoming more important: as systems, tools and vehicles continuously generate production and condition data, their analysis, interpretation and use in day-to-day production are steadily increasing.
Weber also emphasises this point: “This transformation can only succeed together with the people in the plant. Our employees have shown with great expertise, enthusiasm and commitment that top-class industrial production is possible even under the most demanding conditions.” In Munich, industrial work is therefore being redefined: more training, the use of digital tools, intervention and systemic understanding.
Vehicle and factory architecture are moving closer together
The vehicle itself shows why the restructuring of the plant goes so deep. Vehicle architecture and factory architecture are increasingly converging in future automotive production. The new i3 features a simplified zonal wiring harness architecture that saves 600 metres of cabling and reduces wiring harness weight by 30 percent. This is not only an advantage in the vehicle, but also an important factor for assembly, ergonomics and testing processes. Fewer different connection elements, more modular assemblies and digitally readable vehicle states are directly changing industrial work on the line.
There is also the fact that the car is increasingly testing itself. In Munich assembly, the i3 already reports thousands of characteristics to the production system while it is being built. Cameras and sensors supply additional data, which are evaluated using AI. So the factory no longer just builds a product; it interacts with a product that, even as it is being created, is both data carrier and test object. This is precisely where one of the major shifts of the coming years lies.
The production network becomes the real strength
How concrete this new logic is can be seen in the model’s rollout across the network. Ramp-up begins in Munich, followed later by Shenyang in China and San Luis Potosí in Mexico. This allows volumes to be shifted according to demand. For Nedeljković, this is exactly the core of industrial resilience: not rigid utilisation at any price, but the ability to adapt production to markets.
In parallel, BMW continues to invest in the European and global production network: in new equipment and modern technologies at existing sites, in the new vehicle plant in Debrecen and in five new locations for assembly of sixth-generation high-voltage batteries – one of them in Irlbach-Straßkirchen in Bavaria. The production network is thus not only an organisational principle, but also a physical infrastructure of plants, drivetrains, batteries and know-how transfer.
“The ramp-up of the new models is to be understood as the rollout of the Neue Klasse within the global production network,” explains Bernhard Eich, head of quality management at the BMW Group Munich plant. This means: Munich does not work in isolation. Debrecen, the first Neue Klasse location, is already up and running, Irlbach-Straßkirchen will supply Munich with Gen6 batteries, the electric drive comes from Steyr, and the Energy Master from Landshut. At the same time, the ramp-up draws on experience from pilot plants, development locations and series-production plants. More than 30 technical teams work across sites in the production network, with problems to be solved once and shared throughout the network.
For Munich this means two things. Firstly: despite its historic role, the plant is not the centre, but a hub. Secondly: precisely for that reason it carries significant weight. What succeeds here under urban, spatially constrained and production-proximate conditions can serve as a blueprint for other existing plants.
Germany is the anchor, Europe the core market, the network global
For BMW, Germany is more than just a production location – it is the group’s industrial anchor in Europe. More than one million vehicles rolled off the production lines at the German plants last year; one in every four cars produced in Germany thus comes from a BMW plant. The fact that Regensburg and Leipzig operate on a three-shift model shows how great the operational importance of these locations is.
Europe, in BMW's view, is not a protected space but a core market in an open industrial system. It is precisely from this that Milan Nedeljković derives his criticism of an overly narrow “made in Europe” logic. Anyone who thinks European industrial policy only in territorial terms, he argues, overlooks how heavily companies like BMW depend on internationally integrated supply chains.
Internationally, BMW is thus defending a production model based on free trade, division of labour and flexible networks. The warning behind this is clear: less openness would not lead to greater strength, but to less innovation, lower growth and ultimately less prosperity. For BMW, Germany, Europe and the global production network are more closely interlinked than some industrial policy debates suggest.
Conclusion: the factory itself becomes a competitive product
The new BMW i3 is therefore not just another electric car in the core segment of the brand. It is the visible result of a development that began in many plants and is now becoming concrete at the main plant. In Munich, BMW is demonstrating how a historic site is shifting, under ongoing production, towards software‑defined, electric and more networked manufacturing. The real signal is therefore not only the new vehicle. It is the recognition that the factory itself is becoming the decisive competitive product.
