BMW opens Shenyang Gen6 line as the 1,213 km test stays uncertified

Shenyang is now building the pack. The distance BMW attached to the day is a company road test.

On 15 October 2026 BMW started series production of sixth-generation high-voltage batteries in Shenyang, its third Gen6 site after Debrecen and Irlbach-Straßkirchen. CnEVPost, reporting BMW's account, said a long-wheelbase i3 50L covered 1,213 km on expressways, national highways, rural roads and city streets, and finished with 1 percent charge. The outlet classed that distance as this specific test. It is not a WLTP or CLTC rating.

BMW says the new cylindrical cells deliver more than 20 percent higher energy density than the previous generation, and up to 30 percent faster charging and greater range. The cells go straight into the housing. The module layer is gone. Electrive reported a diameter of 4.6 cm and two heights, 9.5 cm and 12 cm, plus BMW's Energy Master unit on the pack to watch state of charge and temperature.

CnEVPost said the first packs feed the Neue Klasse iX3 and i3 built in China. It put the shop at 240,000 square metres, about five times the previous battery area, with construction from May 2023. Pre-orders for the China-only long-wheelbase iX3 opened on 21 August, with deliveries scheduled for November. Trial production of the Energy Master at the Shenyang powertrain plant began in late September, the outlet reported.

Xinhua reported a 10 billion yuan battery investment, about $1.49 billion, and described Shenyang as the group's largest plant, with more than 120 billion yuan invested there since 2010. The agency said BMW had worked with CATL and EVE Energy to industrialise the large cylindrical cells. Birgit Boehm, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance, told Xinhua that starting battery production was a critical step toward bringing Neue Klasse models to China.

CnEVPost said the i3 50L carried a 113.4 kWh battery and recorded 8.8 kWh per 100 km. Across 1,213 km that rate is about 107 kWh. A 113.4 kWh pack taken from full to 1 percent would release about 112 kWh. Those two reported figures do not reconcile if the car started full. A lower start, a quoted capacity that is gross rather than usable, a consumption definition that is not the test average, or a dashboard percentage that is not stored energy would close the gap. None of those conditions was published. BMW also called the run the longest single charge in its battery-electric history. That is a company demonstration, and it has to stay labelled as one.

EVXL argued that the gains arrive without a kilowatt figure, a state-of-charge window or a named test cycle, and that BMW is comparing the cylindrical cells with its own fifth-generation prismatic cells, not with another maker's pack. The press lines read that way: the percentages and the cell-to-pack layout are stated, and the test conditions are not. Xinhua attaches CATL and EVE Energy to the Chinese industrialisation. It does not name a cell supplier for the later assembly sites. A certified range for the China i3 50L and iX3, and a charging curve with a peak power and a window, are the figures that would turn a production start into something a buyer can use.