BMW starts production of the 5 Series

Soon there will be a full house again in Dingolfing, the location where BMW has always built the "big" sedans, the 8 Series Coupé and Convertible, the 4 Series Coupés, and the iX. However, the 5 Series traditionally makes up the large numbers among the big ones, and yesterday we spotted the first M5 Touring on a car transporter on the way to Munich!

After the iX and i7, around 40 percent of all Dingolfing models are expected to be purely electric by 2024 – globally, a total of 15 electric vehicles are planned to start between 2021 and 2024. Production board member Milan Nedeljković also explains:

"E-mobility is the new normal – in our plants worldwide."

The 5 Series will also return as gasoline, diesel, plug-in hybrid, and electric versions, in both sedan and touring formats. This allows Dingolfing to respond to demand at any time. A total of one billion euros has been invested at the site to prepare it for the future and to produce the iX, 7 Series, and 5 Series as planned.

The new 5 Series is expected to massively boost production numbers

In 2022, workers at the site built approximately 280,000 cars – an absolute number that is rather low but relatively high considering these are high-priced, highly equipped models. Nonetheless, Plant Manager Christoph Schröder hopes for increasing production numbers – at least 300,000 units plus x:

"The BMW 5 Series is traditionally the core model in Dingolfing and will again provide crucial volume impulses this time."

Between the lines, you can already hear how important the 5 Series is for Dingolfing. The deputy chairman of the Dingolfing works council, Stefan Danner, also adds:

"The BMW 5 Series is central to the successful transformation towards e-mobility, ensuring the long-term capacity utilization of our plant and securing jobs."

Of the 12 million models assembled in Dingolfing, eight million were 5 Series!

How essential the 5 Series is can be seen over the last 50 years: Of the approximately 12 million BMWs at the plant, eight million were 5 Series. The first model in the newly built plant was an orange-red 520i. BMW also provides other interesting figures: The 18,000 employees at the site earn a total of one billion euros per year, which equates to an average monthly salary of 4,629.63 euros if you calculate twelve salaries. Additionally, 1,000 suppliers from Lower Bavaria are under contract. Also exciting is the savings achieved through waste reduction: The weight per produced vehicle has been reduced to 600 grams. By the mid-2020s, biomass district heating is expected to cover half of the process hot water consumption, reducing CO2 emissions by 10 to 15 percent.

One billion euros for the future

And since 2015, another billion has been invested, including smart logistics and intelligent camera systems for quality monitoring. And the 7 Series autonomously drives some routes between the assembly hall and the finish area, which is now to be rolled out on a larger scale with the 5 Series. They are still proud of the high proportion of “made in Bavaria,” as Nedeljković explains:

“Nine out of ten BMW vehicles produced are now sold to customers outside Germany. Nevertheless, we have more than half of our employees here in Germany, especially in Bavaria. And despite all the internationalization needed to grow globally in a balanced way, Bavaria remains an important pillar of the BMW Group and its production network.”

On July 21, 2023, in the presence of Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, the production of the new 5 Series officially began. On that day, he stated that Bavaria, mountains, and BMW belonged together, and the white-and-blue brand is mentioned abroad in the same breath as “beer” (and perhaps FC Bayern).

On that day, Dingolfing was briefly the “heart” of the Free State, where initial pre-production and production models of the new 5 Series had already been set up, after the line ran “empty” in the spring, marking the end of the seventh generation of the 5 Series. Except for the Touring, the last models of which are still being produced. Seven times five was just 35...

What does that mean?

Grand opening in Dingolfing: On July 21, 2023, the official starting signal for the most important car of the plant, the new 5 Series, was given. M5 and Touring will follow.