BMW revving up electric production at newly constructed plant

German premium carmaker BMW officially opened its advanced Lydia plant last week in Shenyang, Liaoning province, the base of its joint venture BMW Brilliance Automotive, further expanding its production footprint in the largest auto market worldwide.

With a total investment of 15 billion yuan ($2.24 billion), the new plant is BMW's largest single investment project so far in China. It increases annual production capacity at the BMW Shenyang production base to 830,000 units.

Plant Lydia has the flexibility to produce electric vehicles exclusively. The first model produced in the new plant is the all-new BMW i3－BMW's first pure electric mid-sized sports sedan. The model is tailored exclusively for Chinese customers, the production of which started in May.

With the new plant, BMW Brilliance has invested 83 billion yuan in Shenyang since 2010. The city is home to the biggest production base in BMW Group production network.

Jochen Goller, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China, said: "The expansion of our production footprint in China shows we are preparing for further growth in the world's largest electric car market and are confident in China's long-term prospects."

"We are stepping up our e-mobility efforts, aiming for more than a quarter of our sales in China to be all-electric by 2025. With BMW's expanded and upgraded production base in Shenyang, we are now fully prepared to serve the growing market demand for e-mobility in China," Goller said.

Franz Decker, president and CEO of BMW Brilliance, said: "Despite many challenges over the last three years, Plant Lydia was completed on schedule. It is a testament to our strong team in China and an excellent global collaboration. Our new plant sets a standard for production that is lean, green and digital."

Plant Lydia is the latest example of the BMW iFACTORY strategy, which is BMW's master plan for the automotive production of tomorrow. The BMW iFACTORY defines the future orientation of plants and production technologies at BMW and provides a global approach to transform the production network toward e-mobility.

Digital manufacturing

Plant Lydia was fully planned and simulated in a virtual environment from the start, which was a first for BMW globally. Using Epic Games Unreal Engine 3D creation platform as the backbone for virtual planning, every detail of the entire production process was designed in the virtual world. In this way, Plant Lydia can be considered as a Metaverse plant.

The integration of the virtual with the real world optimized planning processes, enabled cross-regional and cross-timezone collaboration, and helped to overcome the challenges of the ongoing pandemic. In all, the use of virtual planning shortened the construction time by six months.

The data-driven plant also uses cloud-based digital platforms and the industrial internet of things to connect every product, process and person, which can enhance quality control, boost efficiency and enable predictive maintenance.

The widespread use of artificial intelligence, data analytics and algorithms has shifted decisionmaking from "experience-driven" to "data-driven". Around 100 AI applications are used at BMW's Shenyang production base.

The plant has installed 1,600 multifunction cameras and is covered by a 5G network to support data and video transmission. BMW Brilliance has also built a new data center for Plant Lydia that contains more than 1,200 servers.

Sustainable production

Nicolas Peter, BMW board member responsible for finance and China affairs, said when it comes to sustainability, BMW believes it's not just about launching EVs but using advanced technologies, promoting the efficient use of resources and the circular economy model.

For BMW, lowering carbon dioxide emissions and reducing the consumption of water and electricity in production processes are just as important as financial indicators. BMW is using green energy throughout its global production network and has set a goal of reducing carbon emissions through the entire life cycle per vehicle by 40 percent by 2030 compared to 2019, Peter added.

BMW's commitment to sustainability is also fulfilled in Plant Lydia. The plant's workshops are equipped with state-of-the-art production equipment, such as electric-powered welding guns and ovens in the body shop that utilize renewable electricity supplies to reduce emissions.

The plant also has an intelligent operation center with a smart energy management system that monitors energy and resource consumption in real time, and uses AI to analyze how to optimize energy use.

Currently, the entire BMW Shenyang production base uses 100 percent renewable electricity. It has 290,000 square meters of solar panels, the most in Liaoning province. These solar panels can generate 44,000 megawatt-hours of electricity per year－enough to power 9,000 houses for a year.

The solar panel expansion will continue in the coming years, with an area of 120,000 sq m under construction at Plant Lydia.

In addition, green areas in the plant consist of gardens, artificial lakes, a variety of plants and 11,000 trees, sustainable landscaping and a sponge city system collects rainwater to nourish plants and replenish underground water.

Flexible e-mobility

Flexibility is one of BMW Group's manufacturing strengths, especially the ability to deploy resources and adapt production to demand at short notice. Plant Lydia is geared toward e-mobility production, but it can also produce other models flexibly and efficiently.

Last year, BMW Brilliance's annual production surpassed 700,000 units for the first time, ranking it first among premium carmakers in China.

The launch of the new plant also accelerates the electrification of BMW. The carmaker plans to offer five electric models－the iX3, i3, i4, iX and i7－by the end of this year for Chinese customers and 13 by the end of 2023.