Technical Tour: BMW Plant

The Leipzig BMW factory, built in 2000, turns out up to 750 vehicles every day. After manufacturing began in March 2005, by June 2010 a total of some 700,000 cars had come off the assembly line, meeting internal targets. The plant is the only one in the world to build the three-door 1 Series, the 1 Series Coupé and the 1 Series Cabriolet convertible. This tour allows Summit participants to take a look behind the scenes of the BMW Leipzig Plant, designed by the famous architect Zaha Hadid. The Central Building connects the production areas, offers space for meetings and communication and gives an understanding of production. Each BMW automobile is individually produced and tailor-made to the client's wishes and preferences. Several thousand parts in many different colours and sizes and thousands of production stages are necessary before the vehicle can be delivered. Every BMW built in Leipzig passes through the pressing plant, body shop, paint shop and assembly. The paint shop, where only environmentally friendly water-based colours and powder clear paint technology are used, is one of the greenest in the world. The BMW plant in Leipzig also has a centre of excellence for electric cars, and is setting benchmarks with the production of the BMW ActiveE. Here thermal wheels recover up to 80 per cent of the process heat, and outdoor areas are not maintained by lawnmowers but by sheep, with 36 different species of birds to keep them company.