Sixty years after its commissioning, the BMW industrial complex in Munich, Germany has churned out its last internal combustion engine (ICE). According to BR24, the company continues to make new engines in Austria and the UK, while the Munich site will soon be repurposed for EV production.
In various years, the Munich factory has built all kinds of car engines having from 4 to 12 cylinders. The last power unit to roll off the assembly line before the shutdown was a V8. Going forward, BMW will assemble all of its V8 and V12 mills in Great Britain, while the facility in Austria will handle the more modest powertrain options.
The roughly 1,200 employees of the factory will now be facing a choice: either re-train for EV production or relocate to a different facility. BMW will be investing €400,000,000 into repurposing the entire assembly line in Munich. The details aren’t quite here yet, but the media speculate that the company may need the Munich site to manufacture its upcoming Neue Klasse lineup of EVs. A new battery R&D center will also be opened at the premises.
It remains unknown when BMW might decide to abandon ICE cars completely. The company has repeatedly stated the intention to keep intensifying EV production. Six completely new cars based on the Neue Klasse chassis are scheduled to appear in 2025–2027.
