BMW Battery Factory In Shenyang & Storage Farm in Leipzig – Video

At the moment, the Leipzig battery farm is capable of housing up to 700 i3 power cells. The units are neatly stored on massive racks for real-time access and maintenance. The batteries are connected to the local grid, which allows BMW to sell excess power to participating energy companies. The farm has the capacity to power a whopping 50,000+ residential establishments per month. Moreover, the power cells are connected to four large wind turbines, which are utilized to store generated power for a later time.

“The capacity of 700 high-voltage batteries is the equivalent of an electric range of 100,000 km [62k miles] in a BMW i3,” said Joachim Kolling, Head of Energy Services at the BMW Group. “The scalable approach means that the storage unit could be further expanded to accommodate more batteries. It is also already compatible with upcoming battery generations and therefore future-proof.”

 

 

For the BMW 5 Series plug-in hybrid (the company’s first EV for the Chinese market), the automaker will be producing battery components at its tenth assembly plant in Shenyang, China. The facility was established through the BMW Brilliance Automotive Joint Venture. Power cells manufactured in the building will be installed in BMW 5 Series plug-in hybrid cars by operators in the Dadong plant.

China is often giving us glimpses of the future of the auto industry in the rest of the world – thanks to its aggressive zero-emission vehicle mandate which attracts EV production investments.

The latest example is BMW’s launch of a new battery factory in the country.

The factory called “High-Voltage Battery Centre” is located in Shenyang and it will start by supplying battery packs for the nearby Dadong plant, which produces the BMW 5 Series Plug-in Hybrid – BMW’s first plug-in electric vehicle on the Chinese market.

Oliver Zipse, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Production, said about the opening of the plant:

“The innovative High-Voltage Battery Centre in Shenyang is an important step in the BMW Group’s electro-mobility strategy. It is the first battery factory of any premium automotive manufacturer in China and already the third in our production network, after Germany and the US.”