BMW plant in Steyr – a spirit of optimism and relief after the deal

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Series production of the latest generation of electric motors will start in Steyr from 2025. More than 600,000 units will be produced in full operation at the plant in Upper Austria. A leading decision that secures the location and employment. Plant manager Alexander Susanek in the “Krone” interview about Steyr’s Trump barrel, training and short-time work.

„krone“:Mr. Susanek, Steyr has been working intensively on the production of electric motors for over a year and a half. What was crucial?
Alexander Suzanek: It was important that we had excellent engine construction expertise here at the site, which we have built up over decades. We developed this with the combustion engine and we are now going to transfer it to e-mobility.

When does employee training start?
It’s already started. The current generation of electric drives is produced in Dingolfing. We have many employees who support production there.

How did the employees react to the ‘yes’?
We used to be a location where only combustion engines were produced. Of course, all our employees had the question mark in their heads about how we would fare in the long term. People read all the time: The combustion engine is banned, we no longer need it. Realizing this technological change now was a very decisive step for us to find real work in the long term. Now you can feel a sense of relief, a real sense of optimism. We can set course for the future. That is amazing.

The subject of e-mobility is not entirely new to Steyr.
In terms of development, we have already started to shift our focus from diesel to electromobility. About 30 percent of our developers are already working on e-mobility. And that will now be considerably more, because with this decision we will also develop a fully electric drive on the Steyr site for the first time – not just any old electric drive, but the next generation of high-performance electric drives, which will then also be used in the electrified BMW M vehicles.

What about the necessary construction work?
We are going to do a new building and an extension. In total, we are creating 60,000 square meters of additional production space. We need this because our site is currently running at full speed with the production of combustion engines.

Change of subject: In March, 3,200 employees were registered for short-time work due to missing wiring harnesses. How is the status quo there?
In May we had fewer than 900 employees with short-time working. We are still looking at whether we can apply again for the period from July.

Source: Krone

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