Day 2 of BMW Responsibility Days 2025 shifted from strategic shows to the operational actuality behind the corporate’s subsequent section of electrification. The tour took us from Munich to Straßkirchen and Irlbach—two small communities in Decrease Bavaria the place BMW is constructing one among its most necessary services—earlier than persevering with to Landshut to speak about provider readiness, AI integration, and extra.
A Excessive-Voltage Battery Plant in Rural Bavaria
The brand new Irlbach–Straßkirchen plant is located in the midst of flat Gäuboden farmland, straight adjoining to a village of just a few thousand residents. Regardless of the agricultural setting, the size is unmistakably industrial: a 500-meter-long, 300-meter-wide meeting corridor, an vitality middle, logistics corridors, and a newly constructed fireplace station already geared up with six automobiles. Altogether, the location spans 105 hectares, with devoted inbound and outbound logistics zones, new highway connections, and a large-scale parking and loading infrastructure sized for over 1,000 workers and intensive each day truck actions.
By late 2026, the location is anticipated to provide 1,000 sixth-generation high-voltage battery packs per day, supplying BMW’s Munich, Dingolfing, and Regensburg crops as Neue Klasse manufacturing ramps up. At full workforce ranges by 2028, the plant will make use of round 1,600 folks, supported by 540 truck actions per weekday, a 23,000 m² inbound storage facility, and a 32,500 m² provide middle.
The manufacturing course of follows BMW’s six-step Gen6 battery meeting logic—cell inspection, clustering, welding, foaming and sealing, vitality grasp meeting, and end-of-line testing—supported by digital twins of all main equipment and real-time high quality management.
Building progress displays an unusually compressed timeline for Germany. After a public allowing course of that generated greater than 6,000 pages of documentation, BMW obtained approval in April 2024. Simply 19 months later, the core constructions are standing, equipment is being put in, and greater than 1,000 staff enter the location each day.
Whereas BMW executives have referred to this speedy tempo as “Bavarian velocity,” the comparability typically made internally is China—the place such industrial initiatives can transfer even quicker. For Bavaria, that is as shut because it will get. The corporate now brazenly refers to Straßkirchen as a flagship for its iFACTORY ideas: lean, inexperienced, digital, and people-focused.
Native Politics and a Troublesome Referendum
As anticipated with large-scale industrial initiatives in Germany, this plant was not pushed by quietly. A citizen group mobilized vital native resistance. Issues centered on land consumption, visitors, noise, and the worry {that a} village identified for agriculture can be remodeled into an industrial hall.
Their efforts triggered a referendum in 2023. Turnout reached 75 %, and two-thirds of voters finally accredited the BMW venture. The marketing campaign left social marks which might be nonetheless seen: some banners stay, and a few residents proceed to oppose the event. However the financial affect is simple.
Straßkirchen’s municipal finances has tripled. Lengthy-requested infrastructure investments—together with a bypass highway—at the moment are shifting ahead. Childcare funding, sewage upgrades, and a number of other native companies have benefited straight from the plant. The mayor brazenly admits the venture has “modified the trajectory of the municipality.”
A number of board members acknowledged that BMW needed to conduct an unusually intense allure offensive: info pavilions, public Q&A classes, and direct conversations in native eating places like “Jedermann,” the place executives answered questions late into the night. The corporate made concessions on visitors routing, water administration, and environmental compensation zones, together with 500 newly planted bushes and greater than 3,000 bushes.
Briefly: the manufacturing facility has created winners and dissenters, but it surely has additionally introduced a scale of financial exercise the area has not seen earlier than.
Technical Foundations: BMW’s Sixth-Era Battery Structure
Inside the primary corridor, BMW is putting in manufacturing tools for its sixth-generation battery packs. These will use 46 mm cylindrical cells equipped by CATL and EVE from Hungary, reflecting a combined sourcing technique influenced by each value and geopolitical concerns.
The shift from prismatic to cylindrical cells is central to BMW’s subsequent EV structure. The brand new batteries promise:
- 30% extra vary,
- 30% quicker charging, and
- as much as 50% decrease manufacturing prices in contrast with present packs.
At cell degree, vitality density improves by round 20%, whereas pack-level prices fall due to a transfer towards cell-to-pack development, eliminating modules totally. The Gen6 pack additionally helps BMW’s upcoming pack-to-open-body integration, the place the car construction turns into an energetic aspect of the battery housing.
Larger nickel content material, diminished cobalt use, and silicon-enriched anodes drive these features. Half of the uncooked materials enter will come from recycling streams, and the rest will likely be sourced by suppliers’ world networks. Battery cell manufacturing at accomplice websites in Hungary operates on 100% renewable vitality.
Notably, the plant consumes nearly no course of water. Rainwater is collected, and non-production wants—canteens, sanitation—are dealt with through a separate water system. A 62,000 m² photovoltaic set up on the roof will assist offset vitality demand starting in 2026.
A Roundtable on Provide Chain Resilience
Later within the day, BMW hosted a roundtable targeted on provide chain stability and the business’s transition towards electrification. BMW Board Member for Buying and Provider Community, Nicolai Martin, emphasised a transparent level: long-term provider well being is tied on to competitiveness.
“We don’t go away suppliers behind,” he stated, “however each firm should guarantee its competitiveness. Innovation, effectivity, and knowledge readiness are decisive elements.”
Martin underscored BMW’s operational scale: the corporate processes greater than 36 million components per day, backed by an annual buying quantity of €90 billion. Electrification magnifies the complexity—battery cells at the moment are the only largest supply of upstream CO₂ in BMW’s worth chain, making provide chain decarbonization a core strategic lever.
Transformation velocity varies significantly by area, and BMW continues to depend on suppliers that efficiently navigate the transition—from combustion-era elements to EV-ready manufacturing. BMW makes use of digital instruments similar to Catena-X digital twins to extend transparency from uncooked supplies to meeting, a functionality Martin described as important for each sustainability reporting and long-term resilience.
Localization stays a precedence, however full regional self-sufficiency shouldn’t be at all times possible. Martin reiterated BMW’s desire for open markets and decrease commerce limitations, although present coverage traits level in the other way.
Landshut: Provider Growth and AI Deployment
The second half of the day moved to Landshut, the place BMW’s Zero Defect Campus serves as a structured coaching and transformation setting for suppliers. Roughly 70–80 suppliers per yr take part within the two-day workshops, which mix operational idea with on-site store ground work.
Suppliers assessment BMW’s manufacturing routines, KPIs, transparency instruments, and communication methods—then establish 5 to seven components they will implement themselves. BMW later follows up straight at provider websites to evaluate progress.
Landshut itself is one among BMW’s most superior part crops, using 3,800 folks and producing greater than 5 million elements yearly. These span mild steel casting, plastics, cockpit modules, cardan shafts, energy-master elements for EVs, and extra. The sunshine steel foundry makes use of two-thirds secondary aluminum, and BMW goals to realize 50% recycled sand utilization in casting by 2026.
High quality management is more and more automated. Each e-motor housing undergoes a CT scan capturing 2,400 photographs in 42 seconds, enabling structural evaluation that might be unattainable with guide strategies. Finish-of-line testing is totally digitalized and built-in with plant-wide knowledge methods.
Subsequent door, the AI Lab highlights BMW’s digitalization push. The corporate has developed an inside multi-agent generative AI interface that connects LLM capabilities with real-time operational instruments similar to coaching platforms, high quality databases, and manufacturing monitoring methods.
One instance is AIQX, BMW’s in-house pc imaginative and prescient system used for optical inspections. Conventional rule-based picture processing couldn’t deal with reflective surfaces or inconsistent lighting. AIQX trains customized fashions for every use case, bettering detection charges and decreasing the necessity for guide rework. Greater than 1,000 AIQX use circumstances are already deployed throughout BMW crops. By means of an initiative known as AI Lab on Tour, BMW is now coaching suppliers to undertake related methods.
These instruments will not be experimental—they’re being built-in into manufacturing environments and utilized by line staff, planners, and high quality engineers.
What turned clear on Day 2 is that BMW sees electrification not solely as a technological shift however as an operational restructuring—one requiring new crops, new workflows, new provider ability units, and new digital instruments.
[Photos: Rainer Haeckl © BMW AG]Source link
