BMW Group takes official possession of the site in Debrecen - VIDEO REPORT
2020. 05. 15.
Preparations for the future BMW Group plant in Debrecen have reached another important milestone. Following successful preparation of the land by the City of Debrecen, BMW Group started the official handover process today, that will be finalized by end of May. In some years, the EUR 1 billion benchmark plant will be able to produce premium cars with traditional as well as with electronic drivetrain on the same production line.
The Munich-based BMW Group, with a history of over a hundred years, is a top premium car and motorcycle manufacturer. It has 31 production and assembly plants in 15 countries altogether, and sells its products in 140 countries around the world. As the owner of BMW, MINI, Rolls-Royce and BMW Motorrad, the company group had a turnover of around EUR 104.2 billion, employing some 126,000 people in 2019 globally.
The factory in Debrecen will be the newest unit in BMW Group's European production network, setting a benchmark in the automotive industry for digitalization, sustainability and adaptability. Top technologies will make it possible to flexibly manufacture premium cars with conventional combustion engines and electric motors on the same production line. The new plant, which will be built in the framework of an EUR 1 billion investment, is planned to make 150,000 cars on a yearly basis, with the creation of 1000 jobs. These figures, however, refer to initial capacity only.
added Michele Melchiorre, Director of BMW Group Plant Debrecen.
Over the past 12 months, the 400-hectare site has been levelled and connected to infrastructure. More than 2,098,000 square metres of soil was removed and backfilled, and around 123,000 meters of underground pipes and about 12,000 meters of rainwater ditches laid. The first 500 piles, which will later ensure the stability of the buildings, have already been laid.
Following Germany and China, Hungary is the third country in the world where all the three German premium car manufacturers, namely Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, are represented with an own production plant. With its plant BMW is the fifth manufacturing OEM in Hungary, opening a new chapter in the history of Hungarian vehicle production, after the decades-old success stories of Audi, Suzuki, Opel and Mercedes-Benz.
