Driving e mobility forward, the BMW Group and Great Wall Motor are building a joint plant in China, where the BMW Group will produce future fully-electric models of its MINI brand.
High-level representatives of the local Chinese government, Great Wall Motor and the BMW Group announced the launch of the new joint venture, Spotlight Automotive Limited. The plant will have a standard capacity of up to 160,000 vehicles per year with both partners together investing around 650 million Euro. The construction phase is planned for 2020 to 2022.
The inauguration marks the next milestone in the relationship between Great Wall Motor and the BMW Group. In summer 2018, the 50:50 joint venture agreement was signed in Berlin in the presence of Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The innovative joint venture model also includes joint development of battery-electric vehicles in the world’s largest market for electromobility. The joint venture envisages production of future electric MINI vehicles, as well as several models and brands for Great Wall Motor. Following the launch of the brand-new first-generation fully-electric MINI, which will be built at Oxford and come to market in the first quarter of 2020, this is another important step towards the MINI brand’s electrified future.
MINI Plant Oxford, which recently built the 10 millionth car since the brand’s launch in 1959, will remain the heart and home of MINI manufacturing, while the Spotlight Automotive joint venture will provide additional capacity and flexibility.
The BMW Group is firmly committed to continuing its successful cooperation with established sales structures and channels in China. The joint venture will not be creating an additional sales organisation in China for future electric vehicles. Every joint venture partner will use their own sales channel for their specific brands.
In recent years, BMW Brilliance Automotive (BBA) has become a cornerstone of the BMW Group’s success in its largest market. The BMW Group’s expansion strategy with the new joint venture could therefore accelerate development of the MINI brand significantly.
BMW Group is one of the leading suppliers of electrified vehicles and by the end of 2021, the company aims to have more than one million fully-electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids on the roads worldwide. At that point, the BMW Group will offer five fully-electric production vehicles. By 2023, the company will already offer 25 electrified models – more than half of which will be fully electric.
Source: Press Release
