BMW takes multi-modal route to manufacturing

BMW's Munich factory remains the fertile root of a century of manufacturing, including its first R32 motorcycle in 1923. At the Munich plant - flanked by the engine-shaped “four-cylinder” headquarters tower and futuristic BMW Welt museum and customer-delivery center - BMW recently showed media its reimagined “iFactory.” This lean, green and digitized environment can build ICE, hybrid, electric or even hydrogen fuel-cell models on a single assembly line. That master plan includes a car and battery factory in Debrecen, Hungary, that BMW claims will be the industry's first CO2-emissions-free plant in 2025, fed entirely by photovoltaic or other renewable electricity.