The Munich plant doesn’t feel like a facility holding its breath. Lines were running at full capacity when I walked through, and past the production floor you could already see the construction crews working on the Neue Klasse conversion. BMW is producing flat out while tearing up the floor for what comes next. That combination — full output now, full rebuild for later — is basically the thesis Milan Nedeljković, current board member for production, and future BMW CEO, came to make.
Production follows the market
Nedeljković’s starting point was flexibility. BMW can change the sequence and full specification of any individual car up to six days before it goes into production. “This flexibility is unique in our industry,” he said, “and it forms the basis of our core principle: ‘Production follows the market.'”
To showcase the efficiency of his plants, over the past five years, Nedeljković says BMW has reduced production costs per unit by up to 25%. That’s a significant number, and the argument is that the flexibility is a big reason why — less waste from locked-in decisions, more ability to respond when demand shifts.
The new BMW i3 is his example. It launches in Munich first, then expands to Shenyang in China and San Luis Potosí in Mexico. Volume between the three plants shifts based on where demand actually is, not where it was projected to be months earlier.
A million cars, and counting
On the question of whether BMW is pulling back from Europe: Nedeljković’s answer was emphatically no. German plants built more than a million cars last year. “Every fourth car built in Germany has been produced in a BMW plant,” he said. Regensburg and Leipzig are running three shifts, six days a week — which is close to the ceiling of what’s sustainable.
On top of that, BMW has been investing heavily for the Neue Klasse transition. Every existing plant has been updated. A brand-new dedicated facility is already online in Debrecen, Hungary for the BMW iX3. Five new sites are being built specifically for sixth-generation high-voltage battery assembly, scattered globally — one of them in Bavaria.
“We are still significantly investing in Europe,” Nedeljković said. The scale of what’s being built makes that hard to argue with.
The part about Brussels
The most direct stretch of his remarks was on trade policy. Nedeljković was critical of the EU’s proposed Industrial Accelerator Act, and didn’t dress it up much.
His problem with it: the Act focuses on “Made in Europe” while ignoring the global supply chains that European companies actually run. “This will lead to less innovation, lower growth — and finally to reduced prosperity in Europe,” he said. The logic being that if you constrain the supply chain in the name of local production, you end up with slower development and less competitive products, not a stronger industrial base.
“Europe needs to act more future-oriented by strengthening free trade and creating a positive business environment,” he said. “We are convinced: Europe needs a strong industrial footprint.” His point being that those two things — free trade and a strong industrial base — aren’t in tension. The Industrial Accelerator Act, in BMW’s view, treats them as if they are.
“Performing while transforming”
He closed with Munich itself. The plant is “producing at full speed, while reinventing itself for the Neue Klasse and for the future,” he said. It’s a line that lands a bit differently when you’ve just walked the floor and seen both things happening at once. But unfortunately, we can’t share more for another few weeks when we will take you behind the scenes with an exclusive video.
First published by https://www.bmwblog.com
Source: https://www.bmwblog.com/2026/03/20/bmw- ... ue-klasse/