BMW to Add Battery Production to Hungary Plant

• by Kris Cook
• November 28, 2022
• 2 min read

As well as vehicle production, BMW Group will build a €500 million high-voltage battery assembly at Plant Debrecen.

A preview of BMW Group’s upcoming investment © Credit to BMW

BMW has announced plans to double its investment at its Hungarian factory to 2 billion Euros total, bolting on a high-voltage battery assembly facility to the site.

Hungary’s government will provide 13.5 billion Forints (€33 million) of non-refundable subsidy for the additional investment, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said at a press conference.

Locating the battery assembly at the Debrecen plant will help BMW streamline logistics for production of its next gen electric cars that will use the “Neue Klasse” underpinnings, the automaker said in a statement.

“The battery is decisive for the competitiveness of electric vehicles,” said BMW.

“With the next generation of batteries for the NEUE KLASSE, range will improve by up to 30 percent, and the charging speed will be up to 30 percent faster.”

Output for both cars and batteries is scheduled to start by the end of 2025 in line with BMW Group’s timeline, and not a minute too soon given how many traditional car brands will be releasing EVs around this time.

All batteries for the vehicles from Plant Debrecen will be assembled on site and distributed far and wide. The new production facility will extend over an area of about 140,000 m². Construction of BMW’s Debrecen site started around six months ago.

BMW had previously said it would spend over 1 billion euros on the Debrecen factory and ramp up to producing 150,000 cars a year.

The plant will be the automaker’s first new factory in Europe in over two decades once it’s up and running.

The plant in Debrecen sounds central to BMW’s efforts to compete with Tesla, the brand leaving many traditional car brands in the dust as far as electric sales are concerned. BMW or Tesla, who do you think wins in the long run?

Kris Cook

Hey, I’m Kris, a Junior Content Strategist at E4TP. At the moment I live in the world of EVs, keeping up on current trends in the space, and delivering quality content. I’m a creative type both inside and outside of work, in that I write poetry in my spare time, design independent zines, and paint. When I’m not knee deep in any of that, I collect vinyl (my collection has around 150 LPs in it), and enjoy spending time with pals outdoors, mostly on a bike — or in another country.

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