A new BMW plant in China has been opened. The Lydia factory (Lida) is a project of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd., a joint venture between BMW and the Chinese car manufacturer Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd.
BMW plant in China
Shenyang in Liaoning Province is the largest BMW production base in the world. A new BMW plant in China, “Lida,” has been opened in Shenyang in the country’s Northeast. It is BMW’s largest investment in China to date, reaching USD 2.2 billion.
Lida is another factory in Shenyang, and it will increase BMW’s annual output to 830 thousand vehicles (from 700 thousand). For years, BMW has been producing cars and batteries for electric vehicles in Shenyang. BMW plants are located in Dadong and Tiexi (open to tourists) Districts in Shenyang. The new Lidia plant is in Tiexi.
The modern Lidia plant was created based on digital technology and includes production and assembly lines, press, body, and paint shop. Cloud-based digital platforms, 5G networks, and IoT accelerate the production process and increase the efficiency of the supply chain. 80% of finished vehicles leave the factory based on digitally integrated rail transport.
The Lidia factory was the first of the BMW group to be planned in a virtual environment. It allowed shortening the plan stage time by half a year. A data center with over 1,000 servers has been built next to the plant.
The state-of-art production equipment at the Lida plant uses renewable energy sources, which aligns with the sustainability concept. The production base is 100% powered by RES. Artificial intelligence optimizes the use of energy.
The factory has already started producing vehicles. One of the key models is the new BMW iX3, BMW’s first pure electric mid-size sports sedan. Lydia will become the main plant for electric vehicles, but also traditional combustion engines.
It will compete with Tesla, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and local manufacturers. BMW is catching up with Mercedes-Benz in the Chinese market. It aims for more than a quarter of its sales in China to be all-electric by 2025. In the future, BMW will launch 13 models of electric cars on the Chinese market.
Main photograph: k.sina.com.cn