Construction activities have commenced at BMW’s new battery assembly plant in Straßkirchen, Germany, with the first excavators moving into action on Wednesday. The manufacturer had sought permission from the local district office for an early start to construction, which was granted last week, according to a report by Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR).
Initial construction machinery has been delivered to the site, and the tape previously used to mark the area since February, meant to deter nesting bird species, has been removed. As confirmed by the site manager to BR reporters, the initial excavation work began on Wednesday. Despite this progress, BMW has yet to officially announce the start of construction.
BR reports that BMW’s request for early construction commencement before Easter has been approved, allowing the excavators to begin removing humus from the 60-hectare site to prepare the construction area and install office containers.
This approach mirrors practices seen during Tesla’s Giga Berlin construction, where numerous works were conducted with provisional permits before final approvals and environmental reviews were secured. Both Tesla and now BMW have assumed the risk of reverting these measures if necessary. However, the extent to which BMW will proceed with provisional permits, as Tesla did, remains unclear.
In February 2023, BMW acquired land in Irlbach and Straßkirchen in Lower Bavaria to construct a large battery assembly plant spanning 105 hectares. The facility will serve as a central hub for assembling supplied battery cells into ready-to-install battery packs, which will then be delivered to BMW’s vehicle plants in Bavaria. The battery cells are expected to primarily come from suppliers CATL and Eve Energy’s plants in Hungary.
Despite BMW’s plan to develop only 60 of the 105 hectares initially, there was local resistance due to concerns about the plant’s traffic impact and the loss of fertile land. However, a majority in Straßkirchen voted in favor of the BMW plant in a referendum held in September 2023.
