GENERAL NEWS
Plant director Armin Ebner; Regensburg’ s local commissioner, Tanja Schweiger; and Neutraubling mayor, Harald Stadler; at the new body shop in March 2025.
BMW Group Plant Regensburg commissions new body shop
BMW Group Plant Regensburg in Germany has commissioned a new body shop at Plant Site 6.12( Neutraubling). An approx. 40,000-square-metre hall on Berliner Straße was remodelled to accommodate the new body shop in Neutraubling. To the north, four smaller extensions were built, covering nearly 1,000 square metres. Around 150 employees currently work in the hall in a single shift.
Plant director, Armin Ebner, commented:“ The BMW X1 and BMW X2 produced in Regensburg remain extremely popular with customers worldwide. In the new production hall in Neutraubling, we currently manufacture over 120 vehicle bodies per day helping us to meet high market demand.”
Once completed, the bodies from Neutraubling are transported to the vehicle plant in Regensburg, where they are assembled into finished cars around the clock in three-shift operation.
Every 57 seconds, a new vehicle rolls off the Regensburg assembly line— adding up to more than 1,400 vehicles per day. With annual production of 342,521 cars, Plant Regensburg was the BMW Group’ s highestvolume vehicle plant in Europe in 2024, exceeding its 2023 production( 238,301 units) by more than 100,000 vehicles. Over a third of the vehicles manufactured in Regensburg in 2024 were electrified, either as plug-in hybrids or fully electric models.
“ We build our vehicles for the global market and contribute to the growth of electromobility,” emphasised Ebner.
The new body shop was constructed in less than 12 months. Dismantling of the
Production processes at BMW’ s Plant Regensburg.
previous logistics facilities and construction of the new body shop took place concurrently. The first test bodies rolled off the assembly line in January and production ramped up in early March. A total of 294 robots are in use, with 238 welding guns set up to 4,771 welding points per vehicle body. As part of the capacity expansion, BMW X1 bodies will no longer be produced solely in the existing body shop in Regensburg, but also in Neutraubling.
With an investment of over 550 million euros over the past two years, the BMW Group has also secured the long-term future of both Upper Palatinate sites: Regensburg and Wackersdorf Plants. BMW Group Plant Regensburg is already preparing for production of the next model generation, the NEUE KLASSE. During the production break over the New Year period, remodelling at the plant continued in the body shop, paint shop and vehicle assembly. More extensive structural measures will follow during five-week production downtime in summer 2025. n
www. bmwgroup-werke. com
Image: Unsplash.
Short-cycle can recycling
On Global Recycling Day recently, The Aluminum Association and Can Manufacturers Institute released research quantifying the aluminium beverage can’ s circularity success. New research from circular economy and materials management consultant, RRS, confirms that used beverage cans( UBCs) move from recycling bin to newly formed cans in less than 60 days on average in the United States.
The study, commissioned by the Aluminum Association and Can Manufacturers Institute( CMI), demonstrates the uniquely circular nature of aluminium beverage cans which, when recycled, almost always become a new can.“ Aluminum beverage cans exemplify a robust, domestic circular economy operating at scale,” said CMI President, Robert Budway.“ When aluminium beverage cans are recycled properly, they become a new can in less than two months on average. And nearly 97 % of recycled aluminium beverage cans in the United States go on to become new cans, compared to 30-60 % for glass and 34 % for plastic bottles.”
According to a report published last year by the Aluminum Association and CMI, the average aluminium beverage can sold in the United States contained 71 % recycled content compared to 23 % for glass bottles and 3-10 % for plastic( PET) bottles. The report also found that 43 % of aluminium beverage cans shipped in the United States were recycled, equal to recycling nearly 90,000 UBCs per minute.
“ We have an enormous opportunity to recover and reuse more aluminium at a time when the industry needs this vital material back to meet growing demand and historic U. S. aluminium investment,” said Aluminum Association President and CEO, Charles Johnson.“ On average, Americans throw away about 15 twelve-packs worth of used beverage cans per person every year, a nearly US $ 1.2 billion loss for the economy and our metal supply. This is unacceptable, and we must find a way to recycle more of this vital material for both our economic and national security.”
Aluminium recycling slashes energy use and emissions by 95 % versus producing new aluminium, while serving a steady, reliable domestic supply chain. n
www
. aluminum. org
10 | ismr. net | ISMR June 2025