BMW's oldest factory is going all-electric, and the i3 has to pay for it

BMW has begun series production of the new electric i3 at its Munich home plant. The sedan's provisional 912-kilometre WLTP maximum will do the promotional work. The figure BMW is pushing is 10 percent: the further reduction in manufacturing cost it says the new line has delivered.

That claim turns a familiar new-car launch into a factory test. BMW spent four years rebuilding a cramped, century-old site while it continued turning out as many as 1,000 cars a day. From 2027, Munich is scheduled to make only battery-electric vehicles. The i3 therefore has two jobs: compete as an electric 3 Series and prove that converting an established European plant can produce EVs economically, not merely ceremonially.

The conversion added a new body shop, an assembly hall with integrated logistics, and a delivery hall that is now being commissioned. Together, the new facilities occupy about a third of the site. BMW says production did not stop during the work.

That matters because Munich is not an empty industrial park designed around batteries from day one. The plant has built the 3 Series since 1975, producing more than nine million of them. Packaging a new electric architecture, battery handling and integrated logistics into that inheritance is a different exercise from starting with a clean sheet.

Raymond Wittman, BMW's board member for production, described the start as a pairing of the company's defining car and defining factory. “With the fully electric BMW i3, we are bringing together what belongs together: the 3 Series embodies BMW more than almost any other model – and Plant Munich represents our brand more than almost any other production site,” he said in BMW's production announcement.

Plant director Peter Weber said the start of i3 production is lowering manufacturing costs by another 10 percent. BMW attributes that to the Neue Klasse architecture, more targeted automation, digital systems and closer integration between product development, production and suppliers. It has not published a per-car cost or the baseline behind the figure, so it should be read as BMW's manufacturing claim, not an independently audited saving.

The i3's final assembly happens in Munich, while its sixth-generation high-voltage battery comes from BMW's new Irlbach-Strasskirchen plant in Lower Bavaria, roughly 90 minutes away. The electric drive is made in Steyr, Austria, where BMW produces the rotor, stator, inverter and transmission. Landshut supplies the aluminium motor housing.

This regional layout reduces the drama of hauling complete packs across continents, although it does not make the supply chain wholly German or self-contained. BMW's announcement focuses on pack and drive production rather than tracing cell materials to the mine. The picture it does give is of a vehicle, battery system and drive unit meant to ramp as one manufacturing network.

Factory efficiency will not rescue an unwanted product. BMW says i3 orders have been strong since books opened ahead of schedule in mid-June, without giving a total. That is encouraging but too vague to measure against Munich's capacity.

The launch model, the dual-motor i3 50 xDrive, uses BMW's 800-volt Neue Klasse hardware. BMW's provisional figures put consumption at 13.4 to 16.1 kWh per 100 kilometres and WLTP range between 758 and 912 kilometres, depending on specification and test conditions. Those are laboratory figures, not a promise that every car will travel 912 kilometres on a motorway.

Independent driving so far has been more useful for understanding the engineering than the range. Top Gear drove a roughly 95-percent-complete prototype on frozen roads and lakes in Sweden. Its tester found that the two-tonne sedan masked its mass well, with communicative steering and consistent braking even when regenerative braking handed over to the friction brakes. The same test noted the passive springs and dampers, a relatively simple choice in a market crowded with complicated chassis hardware.

A separate WIRED technical walkaround explained why the i3 should not feel like an iX3 with a lower roof. The sedan uses narrower wheels, a lower battery position, different aerodynamics and its own steering ratio. AUTO TV's first-look video also put the cabin change front and centre: the conventional instrument binnacle is replaced by information projected across the lower windscreen, alongside a central touchscreen.

The i3 gives BMW a credible technical story: long provisional range, fast 800-volt charging and early prototype dynamics that appear to preserve some 3 Series character. Munich gives it a harder business story.

By next year the plant is meant to have left combustion-car production behind. If demand holds and the claimed manufacturing saving survives the ramp, BMW will have demonstrated that an old, urban European factory can be reworked into an EV-only site without first going dark. If either part falters, the neat symbolism of an electric 3 Series rolling out of Munich will be expensive decoration. Watch the cost claim and production volume, not just the range badge.