BMW facility in Landshut/Germany "Energy Master" for the whole world

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The control center for the high-voltage battery of BMW's "New Class" comes from Landshut. In future, 400 robots and 700 employees will work in the highly flexible production facility.

A good dozen squeaky orange robots are still just standing guard in the otherwise rather gray factory hall. They were bright splashes of color at the presentation of the new production facilities for high-tech control units last Friday (February 21). The control centers, which BMW calls "Energy Masters", are mounted on the high-voltage battery and act as an interface for the high-voltage and low-voltage power supply as well as for the data from the high-voltage battery. They also control the power supply to the electric motor and the on-board electrical system.

Pre-series production is currently underway. In future, a total of around 400 robots will assemble and test the control units. The start of production is planned for August with 200 employees. In a second expansion phase from mid-2026, the number of employees is set to rise to up to 700.

"The pace of development is high"

Wolfgang Blümlhuber, Head of Driving Dynamics and In-house Component Production, emphasized the close networking between development, purchasing and component production at BMW. The control units for the high-voltage battery of the sixth generation of BMW's eDrive technology (Gen6) were developed and now also produced entirely in-house. "The current pace of development is very high, so internal expertise is crucial," explained Blümlhuber.

Innovation boost from Lower Bavaria

Plant Manager Thomas Thym is proud of the highly flexible production system, which was also designed entirely in-house: "All BMW Group battery assembly plants worldwide are supplied with the control unit from the new production facility in Landshut (Germany)." In addition to the site in Irlbach-Straßkirchen (just under 100 kilometers (approx. 62 miles) north-east of Landshut), these are the plants in Debrecen (Hungary), Shenyang (China), San Luis Potosi (Mexico) and Woodruff near Spartanburg (USA).

For Thym, the new production facility is also a "sustainable strengthening of Lower Bavaria as an industrial location". BMW employs around 3,700 people in Landshut, the Group's largest component plant. Since 2020, the OEM has invested a high three-digit million sum in the expansion of electromobility at the Lower Bavarian plant.

400 robots on five soccer fields

The modular production system, which covers an area the size of five soccer pitches and will eventually have 400 robots, achieves a degree of automation of over 80%. Quality assurance is primarily based on in-process monitoring, including AI-based camera systems and 100% end-of-line system testing.

Modular principle: scalable according to requirements

Just to make the dimensions clear: around 560,000 screws are placed in the new system every day. Assembly robots are equipped with flexible grippers and move on rail tracks to ensure maximum flexibility. The individual workstations are not interlinked, but can be used variably as modules—depending on requirements—and are also scalable. Parts are supplied via a new high-bay warehouse with 30,000 storage locations and a small parts warehouse with 18,000 locations.

Two variants are produced, one for the single-motor front-wheel drive, the second for Gen6-E drives with up to four electric motors. Further variants are created via the software. However, skilled human hands are still required for the manual assembly of the wiring harness in the control unit. But even here, nothing works without robots: a steel colleague carries out the quality check at the station and checks, among other things, whether the plugs are correctly engaged.