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The city within the city: 100 years of the BMW plant in Munich

2022-05-22T04:34:31.180Z


The city within the city: 100 years of the BMW plant in Munich Created: 05/22/2022, 06:22 By: Andreas Hoess The BMW main plant in Munich is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year. © Alexander Heinl/dpa The BMW main plant in Munich can look back on an eventful history - and it will soon be completely rebuilt. Munich – The bodies are lined up on the track like the wagons of a ghost tra


The city within the city: 100 years of the BMW plant in Munich

Created: 05/22/2022, 06:22

By: Andreas Hoess

The BMW main plant in Munich is celebrating its hundredth anniversary this year.

© Alexander Heinl/dpa

The BMW main plant in Munich can look back on an eventful history - and it will soon be completely rebuilt.

Munich – The bodies are lined up on the track like the wagons of a ghost train.

The shiny skeletons start up with a brief jerk, and suddenly orange robotic arms pounce on them.

One of them brings a trunk, the others weld.

Sparks fly, it smells like hot metal.

In seconds the spook is over again.

The front body floats to the upper floor, it is a BMW i4, which will later get an electric drive.

As if by magic, a 3 series is added at the back.

When the Bavarian Motor Works moved into the site of the BMW main plant 100 years ago, no one could have dreamed of what it looked like there today.

In 1922 there were only six halls on a green field.

Today, the 50-hectare property between Lerchenauer Strasse and Dostlerstrasse has been developed down to the last centimeter and is completely overgrown by the metropolis of millions.

In a century, a city has grown within the city, complete with restaurants, fire department, hospital, train station and the four-cylinder tower in which BMW boss Oliver Zipse sits.

BMW: A car rolls off the assembly line every 65 seconds

Around 1,500 robots and 7,000 employees from 50 nations ensure that 900 to 1,000 cars roll off the assembly line in Munich every day – one every 65 seconds.

Sener Yilmaz is one of these employees.

"When I was in the plant for the first time, I was surprised how tight it is here," he recalls.

Because there is not enough space, production takes place on several floors in Munich, which is unusual for a car factory.

"Nevertheless, everything works smoothly," says Yilmaz.

For Sener Yilmaz, 37, BMW is part of the family.

His grandfather was already in the factory, and his father Ali also works here.

"My mother can no longer hear it when we talk about BMW at the kitchen table, she then leaves the room," says the new father.

But there is always a lot to tell.

When grandfather started working as a guest worker in Munich in 1977, not only did the cars look different, the work was different too.

Welded by hand, wearing leather jerkins and protective goggles, and painted in protective suits.

And if something was screwed under the car, you just lay down underneath it.

BMW: "Bavarian mentality" has never been lost

It's different today.

"Most things are automatic," explains Yilmaz, who leads a team of 70 people that assembles front axles.

You no longer have to crawl under the wagons, the production line simply turns them so that you can screw while standing.

Industrial robots do the welding and painting.

The fresh paint is then meticulously scanned by machines, and the data is evaluated by artificial intelligence, which immediately recognizes even the smallest bubbles, bumps or damage.

If you believe Yilmaz, despite all the automation, the human aspect has not fallen by the wayside.

It might have been a little more comfortable in the past, but even now there is still a certain “Bavarian mentality”.

The team spirit, the dialect, the landscape: "I like that," says Yilmaz, who has also worked for BMW in Brazil.

“Here we regularly go to the beer garden or to the Oktoberfest after work.

That's part of it and that won't change any time soon."

BMW: It all started in Munich with motorcycles

What has changed are the products.

BMW was already building automobiles before the Second World War, but only in Eisenach.

Initially, only motorcycles and aircraft engines were produced in Munich, during the Second World War also with forced laborers and concentration camp inmates - a dark chapter in the company's history. 

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It was only after the war, in which almost all the halls were destroyed and machines dismantled, that car production also started in Munich.

First with the 501 called “Baroque Angel”, the construction of which was so complicated that BMW made a minus with every model delivered.

However, the licensed production of the Isetta scooter from the mid-1950s later created time and money to develop new models.

In the 1960s, the factory reached its limits, which is why it was rebuilt and expanded to Dingolfing.

In 1975, the first generation of the 3 series, which was planned in the middle of the oil crisis, finally heralded a new era.

With almost half a century of construction, the mid-range car is still the most popular BMW of all time.

So change has always been part of BMW history.

Now, too, a change is imminent: electromobility is turning the industry inside out and the new rival Tesla is rolling up the field from behind.

The Munich plant also arrived in the electric age in October 2021 - the first fully electric i4 left the yard.

Nevertheless, combustion engines, hybrids and e-cars continue to be manufactured in parallel on one line in Munich.

This is also unique in car construction.

The future of e-cars: the factory is being completely rebuilt

It remains to be seen how long this parallel world, which BMW calls “technology openness”, will exist.

Slowly but surely, the new e-cars are displacing the old combustion engines.

As early as 2023, every second vehicle from Munich should be electric, and engine construction will soon disappear completely from the plant.

That will leave a mark.

BMW has commissioned architects to redesign the plant so that it is fit for digitization and electrification.

In addition, it should be more open.

Instead of walls and hermetic tin buildings, one would like glass, greenery and passageways for the people of Munich, who then perhaps no longer have to walk around the block.

It will be like open-heart surgery, after all, production should continue as undisturbed as possible at the same time.

The first modifications have already been made.

There is a hole in the middle of the site and excavators are on the road.

Even if the cut will be big, Sener Yilmaz is relaxed about it.

At the moment he drives a youngtimer: a 3-sedan from the 90s.

But he likes electric cars.

His next car will be an i4.

“It really is a great car,” he says.

“And we are all very proud here that we can finally stand up to Tesla.” Yilmaz is happy to accept changes.

From his point of view, there is only one thing that must not go away.

"The four-cylinder has to stay," insists Yilmaz.

Because it is part of the cityscape, like the Olympic Tower and the Frauenkirche.

But it's not even up for grabs, on the contrary: the tower will soon be celebrating its fiftieth birthday.

(hoot)

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-05-22

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