BMW announces that the iX1 is already being produced at its Regensburg Plant in Germany, marking a number of significant achievements for the automaker. The aforementioned factory also makes the high-voltage battery for the iX1.
Aside from being the first electric version of the small sports utility vehicle, the BMW iX1’s production at the Regensburg Plant means that all of the company’s drive technologies are now produced on a single line as part of the flexible production process at the facility. Additionally, as announced two years ago, this means that all of BMW’s German manufacturing facilities can now produce electric vehicles, shifting the production of internal combustion engines to the UK and Austria.
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BMW also announced the production announcement and its upcoming EV milestone. By 2024, at least one-third of the Bimmers produced by BMW AG’s Bavarian plants will be electric, according to Milan Nedeljkovi, a member of the Board of Management responsible for Production.
The automaker also takes pride in its digital manufacturing method, known as the BMW iFactory. The plant uses artificial intelligence in its manufacturing procedures in addition to digital mapping, which facilitates efficient planning of future plant structures and production facilities. One of the plant’s AI-assisted departments is the paint shop, where paint surfaces are scanned to ensure flawless quality before being finished by a fully automated program.
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As an addition to traditional, camera-based quality inspections, the Artificial Intelligence Quality Next (AIQX) uses AI-supported image recognition techniques to help employees with quality inspections.
The BMW iX1 is the brand’s first all-wheel-drive electric vehicle in the compact segment, and it looks exactly like the X1 with blue accents. In Europe, it started to be sold in October. Given that the third-generation X1 is only offered in the US in xDrive28i form, it is unknown whether the iX1 will be made available.
