BMW Brilliance, the joint venture (JV) between BMW and China's Brilliance Auto, held a foundation-laying ceremony on 6 August 2013 for a new engine manufacturing plant in Shenyang, capital of Liaoning province, the Beijing Times reported on 10 August. The plant will have workshops for casting, machining (cylinder processing, crankshafts processing, cylinder head processing), and engine assembly, as well as other production facilities and related infrastructure. The goal for the plant is to help double the JV's annual engine output from the current 200,000 units to 400,000 units when the plant begins production in 2016. All of the engines will be used in locally produced automobiles.
Significance: The new plant will be BMW's only engine manufacturing facility outside of Europe. The first BMW Brilliance plant was established in Shenyang in 2003 and a second one came up in 2012, each with annual production capacity of 100,000 cars. The engine plant is part of the JV's plan to equip BMW engines in Brilliance Auto's Zhonghua brand of vehicles and introduce a new BMW sub-brand, Zhi Nuo, which is expected to launch the i3 electric car in China in the first half of 2014. It is notable that BMW Brilliance, which was looking to double its annual output capacity to 400,000 units by expanding one of its plants in Shenyang, has failed to obtain the necessary regulatory clearances for plant expansion from China's environment ministry. In all probability, the JV will file a revised expansion plan, given China's growing importance for BMW.
