Part of the challenge facing traditional automakers is achieving “supplier independence.” In that sense, the advance of electromobility and the dominance that China exercises in this technology corners Western brands. In the case of BMW. Their plan is to achieve that independence with Argentine lithium.
A couple of years ago the German brand announced an investment of more than 330 million dollars in El Salar del Hombre Muerto, in the province of Catamarca. The intention communicated then was the extraction of lithium for the production of batteries for electric and electrified cars.
Until now, a specific destination of that material had not been reported. Until now. “The batteries that we will produce in Mexico will be made with Argentine lithium”he told Clarion Oliver Haase, responsible for purchasing and the brand’s supplier network for all of America.
Lithium is today a key element to produce the batteries of current electric cars. And Argentina is part of what is known as the Lithium Triangle, the world’s largest reserve of this material, which it shares with Chile and Bolivia.
The Bavarian brand will use Argentine lithium to develop a new generation of batteries, which will begin production next year at its San Luis Potosí plant, in central Mexico. the most modern BMW factory today.
The San Luis Potosí plant was announced in Mexico in 2014. At that time its construction was announced, after an investment of 1.5 billion dollars, to produce the iconic BMW 3 Series, the best-selling model by the German company in its entirety. history.
Currently it maintains the production of the sedan (it is the one that reaches our market), but It also added to the coupe version of the Series 2 and the M2which is not the most powerful it manufactures but it is the most furious of its entire range. In fact, this Mexican plant is the only one that produces these two models for the entire world.
Inaugurated in 2019, the San Luis Potosí factory is today the most modern production center that BMW has on the entire planet. Today it has 3,700 employees, more than half of the more than 6,000 that the company has throughout the Aztec country, also counting the dealerships.
Every 120 seconds a finished car leaves the end of the assembly line, after traveling almost 8 kilometers from the beginning to the end of the manufacturing process. The average gives a total of 450 units per day. Due to the complexity of the offer, between engines, equipment, optional elements, colors and the more than 80 markets to which they are exported, each model can have up to a million possible combinations.
The structure and body of each vehicle are built by approximately 300 pieces, which are welded exclusively by robots: no humans are involved in the assembly process of the vehicle architecture.
The German company places special emphasis on the quality of all production processes. As an example, it represents very well the treatment that is done to water in the paint plant, since It first goes through a physical-chemical processwhich eliminates all metal particles it may have, and then it goes through a biological processin which bacteria are applied to eliminate organic elements from the water. Then a filtration is done to recover these bacteria and remove the ions that are not suitable for the paint.
The factory is also shown as a sustainable plant, since it seeks to reuse the water from that process (water that comes from its own wells and not from the city network) and because it takes advantage of the most powerful energy in that desert region: the sun. The facilities have a solar park of 17 thousand panels installed on 71,000 m2 that allow it to generate 13% of the electricity it needs to produce. Next year this capacity will be doubled with the expansion of the solar park.
New generation of vehicles with Argentine lithium
The next challenge for the San Luis Potosí plant is electromobility and that is where the lithium extracted in Catamarca comes into play. This year it was announced an investment of 800 million dollars to expand the production center and the installation of new technology for the development of batteries first and the manufacturing of the SUV today represented by the Neue Klasse X prototype (New X Class, in German).
The batteries that will be manufactured starting next year will be the so-called Gen6. The main difference with respect to those currently manufactured lies in their design which, according to the company, makes them much more efficient. From a rectangular cell design we move to cylinder-shaped ones that promise to deliver greater performance.
According to what was reported by BMW, this new generation will increase energy density by 20%, which translates into 30% faster charging speeds and a increase in battery life by also 30%.
The one in San Luis Potosí will be one of four plants in the world that manufactures this new generation of BMW batteries along with the one in Debrecen, Hungary; Shenyang, China; Woodruff, United States.
The German company boasts of its future production system, called iFactory, which will allow it to manufacture 100% electric cars, plug-in hybrids or with combustion engines on the same assembly line. In addition, the company helped in the development of a new box size (Pal973) that allows every cubic meter of a container to be used, unlike the “europalet” it previously used to transport parts by ship.
El New Class X
Once battery production is up to speed, BMW will begin production of the SUV version of its Neue Klasse, the range of vehicles that represents the brand’s future in terms of electromobility.
Although the Bavarian company already has a wide range of battery models (it offers 7 in total and the iX2 has just debuted in Argentina), the new family of models will be the one that uses the next generation of batteries and the one that debuts the new design language.
“The first models of the new platform will roll off the production line at our plant in Debrecen, Hungary, in early 2025. This will be followed by the main factory in Munich, and we will achieve additional volumes by integrating the Neue Klasse into the Plant from San Luis Potosí starting in 2027,” Milan Nedeljković, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG responsible for Production, had announced during the official announcement.
In the Neue Klasse a very different language to what the brand is currently showing, with cleaner surfaces and the use of LED lights in various elements of the exterior: the traditional “kidneys” of the trunk are illuminated.
