BMW ships its first e-motors for the ‘Neue Klasse’

The BMW plant in Steyr has started pre-series production of the new electric motor for the ‘Neue Klasse’. This phase should lead to series production in around a year. The debut model of BMW’s next generation of electric cars, probably the iX3 successor, has been announced for 2025.

The BMW plant in Steyr has now shipped the first electric motors for the Neue Klasse test vehicles directly to the vehicle plant in Debrecen. This is a further step toward series production.

“Our plant in Steyr has been delivering the first sixth-generation electric engines to the development department in Munich since September. We also recently began sending our e-engines directly to BMW Group Plant Debrecen, where they are being installed in test vehicles,” explains Klaus von Moltke, SVP Engine Production at BMW AG and Managing Director of BMW Group Plant Steyr.

BMW began pre-series production of electric motors in Steyr in September. Pre-series production of the upcoming electric SUV has also been running in Debrecen since mid-November.

“Over the coming months, we will continue to validate and optimize the complex production process for the new electric motors,” says Helmut Hochsteiner, VP of Electric Engine Production at BMW Group Plant Steyr.

The Steyr plant

At Steyr, Upper Austria, the world’s largest BMW Group engine plant, 4,700 employees produce over one million gasoline and diesel engines yearly. The Neue Klasse’s electric motors are the first from Steyr; until now, BMW has manufactured its electric drives at other plants.

Two years after constructing the new production hall, BMW initiated pre-series production to test the production facilities and trial the motor produced.

BMW will manufacture all the core components of the electric motor in Steyr and then assemble them into a complete drive system. Originally, pre-series production was due to start in July, but it has been at the beginning of September.

The BMW Group is investing around one billion euros in electric drives at the Steyr site by 2030. In the future, the Steyr plant will produce over 600,000 drives per year, in parallel with diesel and gasoline engines.

To this end, existing production areas in Steyr were converted, and new areas were created. The halls were completed in February 2024. Specifically, this involves two new buildings, a two-story production hall, and a logistics hall. In the production hall, two assembly lines for the electric drive systems, including the transmission components and power electronics, were set up.

Supplying current and future EVs

For the sixth generation of electric drive systems, BMW bundles most drive components at one location. In addition to the housing, the rotor, stator, gearbox, and inverter are also manufactured in Steyr. These drives will be installed in the Neue Klasse vehicles, built in Debrecen in 2025 and Munich in 2026.

The Steyr plant also supplies housing for the fifth generation of electric drive systems, which will be installed in the current electric vehicle models. Assembly takes place in the company’s electric drive production facility in Dingolfing.

As the current model series will continue to be built in parallel with the Neue Klasse for a few more years, Steyr will continue to make the housings for Dingolfing. BMW can produce more than 500,000 drives annually in Bavaria, with a further 600,000 units coming from Steyr.