BMW completed expansion of a battery production facility at its joint venture with Brilliance China Automotive Holdings this week to double battery output for locally built electrified vehicles.
The expanded facility is in BMW Brilliance’s Tiexi plant in the northeast China city of Shenyang.
While ramping up output, the expanded center will become the first production site worldwide to build BMW’s fifth-generation high-voltage batteries, the automaker said.
The batteries will be first supplied to the BMW iX3 full-electric crossover to be built at the joint venture’s Dadong plant, also in Shenyang. The factory is set to launch mass production of the iX3 at the end of this month.
BMW to date has launched sales of four locally produced electrified vehicles in China: plug-in hybrid versions of the BMW X1 crossover and BMW 5 Series sedan, and two Zinoro-badged crossovers — the full-electric 1E and the plug-in hybrid 60H.
Zinoro was created in 2013 as BMW Brilliance’s proprietary brand.
China is BMW’s largest single market globally. In 2019, BMW delivered 723,680 vehicles under BMW and Mini brands there, rising 13 percent from a year earlier.
The automaker has not released its sales for China so far this year.