Auto giant BMW opens new plant in China

A new BMW Group China joint venture factory opened in Shenyang, northeast China’s Liaoning Province on Thursday, with an investment totaling 15 billion yuan ($2.2 billion).

The Lydia plant of BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd. (BBA), a joint venture between BMW and Chinese automaker Brilliance China Automotive Holdings Ltd., will increase BMW’s annual production in China to 830,000 vehicles, the automaker said. This is the German automaker’s biggest investment in China.

Located in Tiexi District of Shenyang, Plant Lydia covers a total area of ​​2.9 million square meters. It has ancillary facilities such as a body shop, paint shop, final assembly lines and a large data center.

The factory is covered with a 5G gigabit network to meet the bandwidth needs of technologies such as augmented reality (AR) and real-time video transmission.

“The Lydia factory is the first factory that BMW Group has planned and simulated entirely in a virtual environment from the start of the design,” said factory manager Zhang Tao. She added that at the construction stage, she could simultaneously see the actual construction site and the construction effect shown via virtual reality.

Shenyang is the largest production base of BMW Group in the world. The total number of group employees in China exceeded 28,000.