BMW starts production with $2.24 billion investment in new China plant

BMW said on Thursday that production has officially started at a new plant in China with an investment of 15 billion yuan ($2.24 billion) as the automaker accelerates electric vehicle (EV) production.

The Lydia plant, BMW’s third car assembly plant in Liaoning province, China, will boost the automaker’s annual output to 830,000 vehicles from 700,000 in 2021, the automaker said.

The plant is designed to be capable of producing battery-powered electric cars only according to market demand on its flexible manufacturing lines, BMW said.

The first model from the Lydia plant’s production lines will be the i3, a pure electric mid-sized sports sedan, BMW said, raising the range of its EV models for Chinese customers to 13 next year.

BMW sold 208,507 vehicles in the country in the first quarter, marking a 9.2% decline from a year ago.