The BMW Neue Klasse 6th gen engine is finally going into production.
The BMW Neue Klasse is about to FINALLY be put into production and that means BMW can finally start making the electric motors that power this next-generation of electric-first products. This week, the BMW Group Steyr plant in Austria finally got these latest 6th generation electric motors into production, and soon these power units will be delivered to other factories for final assembly.
This Steyr plant has been manufacturing internal combustion engines for BMW for more than 4 decades. It continues to do so, but has put 1,000 employees on the new electric engine assembly line and is open to move half of the workforce over to this line if demand is high enough globally for this Neue Klasse.
BMW repeatedly refers to this new 6th gen electric motor as an 'electric engine', and that's probably because it's not just as simple as a rotor and stator. The inverter needed a new clean-room environment on site. The whole system is also highly modular, allowing BMW to produce different electric drive train types depending on variant and model. The whole system is built on the new 800 volt architecture with silicon carbide semiconductor tech to boost efficiency. The inverter is integrated into the aluminium housing and this is where the battery's DC power gets converted to AC.
This 6th gen electric motor has 40% less energy loss, is 20% cheaper to produce and 10% lighter versus the outgoing 6th gen electric motor. Overall, this makes the Neue Klasse EVs 20% more efficient overall than the last generation of BMW EVs, enabling up to 800km of driving range on the upcoming iX3 50 xDrive.
It's also a lot greener than before with a 35% reduction in supply chain CO₂e emissions during product development. The new gen battery also uses 50% secondary cobalt, lithium and nickel with renewable energy used in production of the anode and cathode. The Neue Klasse products are going to be made at the Debrecan plant which isn't powered by fossil fuels under normal conditions.