In all their years of operation, BMW has tried hard not to get dragged into politics. As far as Germany’s most prestigious car manufacturer is concerned, they don’t mind who’s in charge of which country so long as that country carries on buying BMWs. It’s worked fine as a strategy for more than eighty years, but global political affairs appear to be about to stage a two-pronged assault on BMW and its factories.

As anybody who follows political news will already be aware, there are two major global factors currently in play which are expected to have an enormous impact on the world’s economy. One of them is the ongoing trade war between the United States of America and China, which has seen tariffs imposed on both sides, and companies which rely on import or export from one country to the other facing elevated costs as a result. The other is Brexit – the ongoing process of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union. The status of both situations often seems to change on a daily basis, making it difficult for BMW – along with many other international companies – to make long-term plans.

Long term planning in companies the size of BMW relies on being able to accurately forecast how the economy is going to perform over months and years, as opposed to days and risks. When a situation is unstable, you can no more predict the future of an economy than you can predict the outcome of your next spin on a mobile slots game. The comparison is apt; playing mobile slots is something that brings a lot of people a lot of pleasure – especially when they win. Big business, however, doesn’t like to take gambles with strategy and planning. BMW executives may or may not visit mobile slots websites or their sister sites in their spare time, but they certainly don’t want to employ a mobile slots game strategy to their financial forecasting practices. It now appears that they’ve tired of waiting for either of the situations to reach a resolution, and are instead taking protective action.

The first piece of news – which is potentially bad news for customers who deal with BMW in the UK – is that BMW has decided to limit production at its plant in Oxford, England, in the event that the UK leaves the EU without any deal being struck about the future trading relationship with the European bloc. The company has already set aside more than $300m in contingency funds in the event of such a scenario, and has warned that prices in the UK would increase if no deal was reached. That would mean fewer BMWs being built in the UK, and potentially the loss of BMW jobs. It would also mean that BMW enthusiasts within the country will likely find it more expensive to acquire new BMW vehicles in the future.

The second piece of news relates to the American-Chinese issue. The company has long been weighing up a production decision on the popular X5 sports car. Prohibitive tariffs have meant that Chinese buyers have been faced with enormous costs when importing the X5, and so the company has now announced plans to simply start building the car in China instead, thus eliminating the need to worry about whether or not tariffs will exist from one day to the next. Boosting production in China will likely mean reducing production in the USA, which may mean that some American BMW workers will soon be dealing with similar issues as the ones faced by their British colleagues.

As well as dealing with changes in the physical production of their cars, BMW might soon find themselves having to make changes to their sales strategy in Japan. BMW Japan has just been raided by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission, who have received complaints about the targets being imposed on sales workers within the Japanese arm of the company. The allegations against the company – which are still being investigated – are that the sales targets imposed on staff are too high ever realistically to be attained, and that workers are forced to buy cars from the company as a punishment for missing the targets. BMW is yet to comment on the story other to confirm that the raid has taken place, and that they’re offering their full cooperation to the authorities.

Reports coming out of Tokyo – which is where BMW Japan is based – say that Japan’s anti-trust organization believes that the questionable business practices within the company began several years ago, and started when Mercedes-Benz and other luxury car companies began eating into BMW’s share of the market within the company. There is no suggestion that the practice has been repeated at any other international arm of BMW such as the US or the UK, and nor has a similar allegation been made in Germany. It’s thought and hoped that if the stories are true, they’re limit to one office within one country, and not indicative of a wider issue.

All three issues together have contributed to a number of negative news reports for BMW in a short space of time. The Japanese issue is being seen as a scandal, the British issue is being presented as the company withdrawing from the country, and the American issue has led to accusations of anti-American business practices by way of moving production out of the country to a rival nation. BMW could do without such distractions – they showcased a number of exciting new cars at the recent Frankfurt Motor Show including the BMW I Hydrogen Next, the Concept 4, and the X6 Vantablack. They would much rather the press was talking about how great their new cars are rather than where they’re made, and how they’re sold.

The bright spot for the company is that despite the political upheaval, they don’t currently anticipate any of their changes in strategy to impact on productivity or profitability, and so the supply of new BMWs won’t be affected in any way. We hope for the sake of our British readers that the situation with the European Union is resolved amicably – being a BMW fan can be an expensive business at the best of times, and having further charges added because of political disputes is the last thing anybody wants to be dealing with!

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW Production May Shift Due To Politics appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Although the new-generation BMW 1-Series is just around the corner, the Germans hit an important milestone. They’ve managed to roll off the two millionth BMW 1-Series at the Regensburg plant.

This special car is going to Japan and is the five-door version wearing an Estoril Blue metallic paint. The current BMW 1-Series was introduced for the first time in 2004, so the company managed to sell two million units in just over ten years.

It would be really nice to compare the sales performance of the current-generation with the new model but we do know from the start that the new BMW 1-Series will be also assembled in Leipzig. Speaking of the new model, it will go on sale towards the end of this month.

The new model will benefit from the latest and greatest system engineered by BMW. We talk about standard LED headlights, iDrive system and BMW ConnectedDrive. There will be the usual engine line-up with both petrol and diesel engines while a range-topping BMW M135i is also on the list.

BMW’s xDrive all-wheel drive system will be available on this top-of-the-range model as well as on some diesel models, namely the 118d and 120d.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW produced two million 1-Series units at Regensburg plant appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

We can all agree that the i branch of BMW is off to a great start, with both its small i3 city car and the hybrid i8 sports car exceeding even the most optimistic expectations.

They also plan to expand and add variety to the green Bimmers, and there are high hopes for the new models to take their place next to the i3 and i8.

BMW plans to reach a production volume of 100.000 units each year, and while they might still sell well, the main reason behind this volume is another. As you might have heard, CO2 emission laws will become stricter come 2020, and each company has to average a certain value across its vehicle range.

The 100.000 i cars a year seems to be the minimum for BMW to comply with the new regulation without having to drastically modify the rest of the range. It’s quite a shame really, having to increase production not because of demand (which is still quite high) but rather because of laws.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW wants to build over 100.000 i models a year by 2020 appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

BMW sales numbers have been more than promising for the first half of this year and the German carmaker was looking to expand its businesses on some of the most important markets in the world.

The Chinese market was definitely one of those points where BMW could have used an increase of production, hence the intention of expanding a local factory in there, a project that would have doubled the carmaker’s production.

Nevertheless, the request of BMW Brilliance Automotive, a joint venture of the brand in Shenyang, was firmly rejected by the local Ministry of Environmental Protection.

The official information came directly from Zhou Shengxian, the Minister who said no to BMW’s plans of producing up to 400.000 Sedan units annually, on the grounds that “Drinking polluted water while driving BMW sedans is certainly not the type of industrialization we are looking forward to”.

Looking at this failure of BMW from a distance, we cannot help but wonder what kind of industrialization is actually China looking for? Could this be a telltale that foreign multinational companies are no longer welcomed in there?

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post China says no to BMW’s development plans appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

The Germans from BMW plan to increase the global production and sell more than 2 million units a year by 2020. In order to make this happen, the Bavarians will expand the production outside of Germany, in countries such as the U.S. and China. These statements were made by BMW Production Chief, Frank-Peter Arndt, in an interview for Automotive News Europe.

According to BMW, about 70% of the vehicles sold in 2002 by the company were produced in Germany. Eight years later, the figure dropped to 62% and this decreasing trend will continue as BMW claims that today, only 58% of the models are produced in Germany.

Moreover, thanks to the new plans for China and the U.S., this numbers will shift further toward 50-50 in the coming years. BMW wants to expand its production in China, a market which is growing continuously and is actually the largest in the world.

Even so, Germany will remain the main country where BMW will produce their models. “That’s why we invest another 2 billion Euros in 2011-2012 to keep improving these plants. The next investment package for 2013-2014 will be decided soon,” adds the company.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW to produce 2 million vehicles a year by 2020 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.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

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.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW Plans to Expand in China 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.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

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