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BMW Hams Hall Plant Investment Is Complete, New Age Engine Production Kicks Off

BMW has been investing heavily in its new family of engines that are supposed to be cheaper to make, less thirsty and more powerful at the same time. Sounds too good to be true then, eh? Well, it may very well be but to our knowledge, so far things have been working out.
BMW engineer checking out engine 1 photo
Photo: BMW
The new B-family of engines will soon take over from the N units. This will apply to both diesel and petrol versions, in 3-, 4- and 6-cylinder guises. We’re also suspecting that the Germans are working on a V8, but it’s too early to confirm or deny such claims.

Either way, to have a constant supply of units coming into their plants, the Bavarian group invested in the Hams Hall plant, to bring it up to speed with today’s world.

Since BMW is the biggest luxury car seller in the world right now and sales are steadily increasing, the engine flow must keep up. That’s one of the reasons why they invested £750 million (€1 billion or $1.15 billion) into their UK facilities, most of which went to Hams Hall.

This year, the plant near Birmingham will be making over one million components for BMW and MINI cars, this being a record-breaking attempt on behalf of the Group as never before has the plant posted such high numbers.

“The transformation in our plant has been huge. Over the last few years we have completely re-developed our two main production areas and installed over 600 brand-new pieces of equipment and machinery. While a high level of technology and automation ensures our plant remains a state-of-the-art facility, the ergonomics of the workstations where we have more manual input have been carefully thought through and adjusted to suit each individual member of the team,” said Plant Director, Markus Fallboehmer.

The Hams Hall plant is also the place where the 1.5-liter 3-cylinder engine for the BMW i8 is being hand-built, this being the only location in the world assigned to such an important duty.
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