About one billion euros will go to the assembly of electric drives at the BMW plant in Steyr (Upper Austria), which will go into series production next year. Hammering and drilling are still going on, 130 systems are being coordinated. First production will start in just a few weeks, but initially for testing purposes only.
“I have an office, but I haven’t been there for a long time. My working day starts here and ends here,” says Werner Schröder. By “here” the head of assembly planning means hall 52 in the BMW plant in Steyr.
No other location of the vehicle manufacturer produces as many engines as those in Upper Austria, and now the latest generation of electric drives is also being added.
Production of the pilot series will start in mid-July. The weeks until then mean pure stress: for system manufacturers and suppliers, their employees and for the employees of BMW Steyr, who will receive the first training sessions on the new systems from next week, which will produce 60 electric drives per hour from autumn 2025.
The second assembly line will be set up from the spring of 2025
The first assembly line has a capacity of almost 300,000 units, and a second line will be set up from spring next year. In 2030, approximately one billion euros will flow into this project.
Since January, the first 130 systems have been set up, spread over four floors: robots move the parts from A to B, lasers mark the motor number on the housing and the gearbox, stator, rotor, inverter and housing move on the roller. conveyor belts.
There have already been test runs in the subsections, now it’s about details and the big picture; the developers are already waiting for the pre-series products. Intensive and lengthy tests are planned. “We don’t produce for fun,” says Schröder.
“Increasingly tougher competition”
Klaus von Moltke is the boss of 4,700 employees at the BMW plant in Steyr. Last year, more than 1.2 million petrol and diesel engines were produced at the site. He spoke to the “Krone” about…
- Uncertainties surrounding e-mobility: “We are convinced that e-mobility plays an essential role in decarbonizing individual mobility. But we also believe that we will see different technologies coexisting on the global market for a long time to come.”
- Steyr’s role in electrification at BMW: “Our goal is to be able to supply the quantities of new electric drives required by the Debrecen vehicle factory in the best possible quality from autumn 2025 and thus once again prove ourselves as a Steyr location in a time of increasingly fierce competition. We plan to deploy approximately half of our employees for e-mobility by 2030.”
- The current factory occupancy rate: “We have a good and stable capacity utilization rate – both in assembly and in mechanical production. On average, we currently operate three shifts on our production lines from Monday to Friday.”
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
