Let’s make this premise: The BMW Group‘s largest engine plant in the world is located in Steyr, Upper Austria, where 4,700 employees produce more than one million gasoline and diesel engines annually. Steyr is also home to a major development center for research and development of new powertrain systems. In June 2022, the company announced that it will begin production of electric drive units in 2025. BMW Motoren GmbH in Steyr is currently one of Austria’s leading industrial companies in terms of sales and exports.
Just ten months after the installation of the system began, the first electric motor has now been shipped from the BMW Group Plant Steyr to Debrecen, Hungary. At the BMW Group Plant Debrecen, the electric motor will be used in test vehicles for the Neue Klasse.
“Our Steyr plant began delivering the first sixth-generation electric motors to the development department in Munich starting in September. We have also started sending our electric motors directly to the BMW Group Plant Debrecen, where they will be installed in test vehicles,” explains Klaus von Moltke, SVP Engine Production at BMW AG and Managing Director of BMW Group Plant Steyr.
The plant of Steyr had already commenced production of the first next-generation electric motors three months ago. Helmut Hochsteiner, VP of Electric Engine Production at BMW Group Plant, Steyr, adds: “In the coming months, we will continue to validate and optimize the complex production process of the new electric motors.” The supply of electric motors from Steyr to the Debrecen plant marks the next significant milestone towards the start of series production – both for the Neue Klasse and its electric motors from Austria.