Right now, BMW isn’t considered as a struggling car maker, rather quite the opposite, as its sales seem to hit new bests every month.

This is exactly why we have to wonder why would they consider dropping a part of its Germany workers.

According to a report, the premium car manufacturer is looking to drop around €100 million worth of employees, starting early 2015. Officially, we didn’t get any confirmation of such a move, but we do know that BMW has initiated talks with the worker’s council.

As for the reasons behind such a move, we can only speculate. Most fingers point toward the massive investments BMW has recently undertaken. One other reason could be the fact that the European market has kind of tired of BMW’s products, with sales hitting an all time low. We’ll know soon enough if the report is accurate.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW might be reducing its Germany workforce appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

The Bavarians from BMW revealed a long list of details and features of the sixth generation 3 Series and of course, we focused more on the main information such as the appearance, engine range and fuel consumption. Today we can talk more about the other part of specifications, such as the place where the new BMW 3 Series will be built and the investments that were needed in order to complete this objective.

To begin with, BMW announced that the new model will be manufactured at two German plants in Munich and Regensburg but also in Roslyn, South Africa. According to the same source, the company had to invest more than €1 billion in order to upgrade the factories and assembly lines for the global production of the new 3 Series.

With a starting price of €35,350 for the diesel model and €43,600 for the more powerful petrol version, the new BMW 3 Series will be offered at launch with a choice of four TwinPower turbocharged engines that we talked about earlier. However, starting 2012, three new engines will be added, namely an 184HP petrol unit and two diesels with outputs from 116HP to 143HP.

The Germans also announced that a full-hybrid 3 Series will be available later. The latter will be powered by a 3.0-liter TwinTurbo petrol unit offering 306 horses and an electric motor producing 54 horsepower. This means a total output of 340 horsepower and 450 Nm of torque and a combined fuel consumption of 6,4 liters/100 km.

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Marcus M.

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The post The new BMW 3 Series to be built in Germany and South Africa appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Here is some bad news for the fans of the smallest and most affordable M model in BMW’s portfolio. According to Matt Russell, the M brand manager from America, the Germans will end the production of the current 1 Series M Coupe in December this year.

Even we knew that the M model will benefit just from a limited production, this decision is quite shocking as we talk about the cheapest M-badged model from BMW but still able to deliver good performance, a recipe that should bring good sales, at least in theory. Until now, BMW Group issued no press release announcing that the production of the 1 Series M Coupe will end along with this year but there is no reason to think that the U.S. M manager lied us.

Matt Russell also stated that the model will be manufactured in less than 1,000 units but declined to tell us how many units are left. Therefore, if you want to get one of the limited units, you would better hurry up as we can’t tell you exactly how many of them are already sold, an increased amount of orders being expected in the following months due to this early production interruption.

As you probably know, the BMW 1 Series M Coupe features a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged unit able to produce 335 horsepower and 450 Nm of torque, the power being sent to the wheels by a six-speed manual transmission. With these resources, the Bavarian model sprints from 0 to 100 km/h in 4,7 seconds and achieves a top speed of 250 km/h. A month ago, the 1 Series M managed to beat the M3 E92 at the Hockenheim circuit by obtaining a lap time of 1:14.1 being 0.1 seconds faster than its bigger brother.

While there are no official details explaining us why BMW wants to end the production so early, some rumors claiming that the 335-horsepower unit which fits the German model is the main cause emerged. To be more exact, the 3.0-liter V6 N54 unit suffered major modifications in order to be a good choice for the current 1 Series M Coupe, the new year bringing some tighter regulations in terms of pollution, something that will make the engine ineligible. BMW will quit manufacturing the N54 unit and therefore, the smallest M has to be pulled out of production.

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Marcus M.

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The post The new BMW 1 Series M Coupe will be pulled out of production in December appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

The future is of automobiles looking greener and greener because of the efforts made by the industry leaders to improve their cars and BMW makes no exception. Even more, the manufacturer is planning to increase its workforce in the green segment so that it can fulfill the demands for such cars.

If you happen to know a friend that specializes in a field such as electric vehicles, fuel-efficient engine development or hybrid powertrains then get him or her to quickly sign up for a job at BMW because there are 1,300 positions to be filled by the end of the month. But don’t despair if you think it’s too late. Next year BMW will open another 1,300 positions for the same fields of expertise.

Why the large numbers you might ask? Well, the BMW Vision EfficientDynamics and the BMW Megacity electric vehicle are prime candidates because the clock is ticking fast until their launch.

It looks like BMW is trying to get a large slice of the green car market, as this will be a car of the future. The company is planning to slowly but surely increase the total vehicle sales per year and these models (and those that will follow) will have a thing or two to say.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW Steps on the Gas for Green Car Production appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

The People’s Republic of China is getting more and more attention from car manufacturers from all over the world because of the rapid pace the car market there grows and BMW has big plans for the country: it wants to become the leader of the luxury car segment there and has a plan to achieve this goal.

China has been swallowing luxury cars with such a rapid pace that researchers are estimating 530,000 units sold this year and up to 1.1 million to be sold by 2015 and estimates have also been made regarding the growing of the car market in the country.

To prepare for the increasing demand of luxury cars from the Chinese, BMW is adding more suppliers to its network, from the present 100 up to 160. A leasing business will also take shape in 2012, with great development potential. Also, BMW is planning to increase the number of dealerships in China this year, totalling 200 locations.

These operations have been noticed on the stock market as well, as the BMW stocks have risen to 47.35 euros, with an increase of 10 cents. The company’s stocks have been on the rise, totalling 49 percent for the year 2012.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW Plans to Expand in China appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Great victories require lots of smaller ones, at least this is beginning to be the thought process of BMW when it comes to it’s strategy in the future. Because of the world’s trends and evolving markets, especially in China, BMW tries to plan ahead of it’s main rivals Lexus and Mercedes and slowly but surely cut down on size.

The German car manufacturer thinks that in order for it’s models to be more attractive to customers, they have to be smaller, more efficient with fuel management and lighter. Thus, BMW will be adding new investments to its plants.

This is also true for the engines, especially the V8, because Europe and China don’t require as many except for the US that will probably remain a niche market for them.

So times are changing and power isn’t everything nowadays, not in a car from the premium segment. China, for example, isn’t interested in horsepower as it is in emissions and fuel consumption. So BMW, in order to qualify for it’s second biggest market, must accept its demands. And if we think of the numbers that result from BMW car sales there, they have good reasons too.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW: Smaller, Lighter, Better appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Fans of the BMW 1 Series will be excited to find out that BMW will be launching the next generation of the 1 Series at the Frankfurt Motor Show hosted in September next year. Because that the present BMW 1 Series has been on the market for quite a long time, BMW thought it would be better to unveil the next step in the model’s evolution.

Changes to the BMW 1 Series will be made not only physically, with increased dimensions to allow more room for the passengers in the back, new engines featuring three-cylinder and four-cylinder versions (the 1.2-litre turbo petrol engine with power ranging from 75 hp to 185 hp and the 1-5 litre twin turbo diesel engine with power ranging from 95 hp to 177 hp). A new driving platform using rear-wheel drive will be installed (the L7).

The new BMW 1 Series will have the same three-door and five-door versions and the convertible and coupe ones to which a family version will be added and according to rumors it will be a Gran Turismo.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW to Be Unveiling the New 1 Series Generation Next Year appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Looks like the scare that BMW involuntarily gave us because of the worker’s strike in South Africa is finally over since the car makers have reached an agreement with the Numsa union, as to pay a 10 percent rise to the worker’s salaries.

More than one week ago it has been reported that a strike had the result of closing the assembly lines of several car manufacturers including BMW, General Motors Company, Daimler, Nissan Motor Company, Volkswagen, Toyota Motor Company and Ford Motor Company,. The reasons were financial, as the workers demanded increased wages and benefits and their union couldn’t find common ground with the car manufacturers during the negotiations which led to up to 2,100 cars to be lost because of the lack of production.

Now that all has ended and the dust has settled, it has come up that about 17,000 units have been lost because of the strike, but we will see if this will have any effect on the rest of the world since more than half of the annual 420,000 units produced in South Africa are destined for export.

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Marcus M.

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The post The South African Strike Has Passed appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.