During a press conference by the company, it said the new generation
electric vehicle Neue Klasse is set to be rolled out in 2026 from its
production base in Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province.
On Thursday, a ground-breaking ceremony was held to kick off
the construction of BBA's new battery production plant in Shenyang with a total
investment of 10 billion yuan (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars). Dubbed the
sixth generation high-voltage battery, it is expected to power the new model
Neue Klasse.
"I am pleased to announce today the local production of
the Neue Klasse in China, 20 years after the first start of production at our
joint venture. Starting from a small assembly plant with just a few units, our
plants in Shenyang have developed into the world's largest production
site," said Milan Nedeljkovic, member of the board of management of BMW
AG, responsible for production.
Since 2010, nearly 100 billion yuan has been invested in the
BMW Shenyang Production Base and its projects, with the production capacity
rising to 830,000 units per year. In 2022 alone, BBA's purchasing volume in
China exceeded 73 billion yuan, of which more than 60 percent was made in
Liaoning Province.
On Thursday, BBA also opened an extension of BMW's Shenyang
R&D Center to boost the company's electro-mobility development.
In China, the BMW Group has established its largest R&D
and innovation network outside Germany, with locations in Beijing, Shanghai,
Shenyang and Nanjing. It is also forging cooperation with leading Chinese
technology and electro-mobility companies, with a joint innovation center built
in Shanghai to explore the future mobility ecosystem.
BBA now has around 430 local suppliers in China, of which
more than 120 are based in Liaoning.