Skip to footer

BMW to open up plant in Brazil

Prompted by strong luxury vehicle sales in South America, BMW has announced it has started construction of its own Brazilian plant, which is expected to come online by the fall of 2014.

|
Matthias Schrader/AP/File
The company logo of car manufacturer BMW on a car in Munich, Germany. BMW plans to open up a plant in Brazil late next year.
  • By Viknesh Vijayenthiran Guest blogger

Just days after Jaguar Land Rover announced it will start building vehicles in Brazil in 2016, BMW has announced it has started construction of its own Brazilian plant, which is expected to come online by the fall of 2014. BMW already has a motorcycle plant in Brazil but strong sales of luxury cars in not only Brazil but much of the South American region has prompted the German automaker to start production of vehicles locally as well.

“Our strategic principle of ‘production follows the market’ has previously proven effective in markets such as the U.S. and China,” BMW production chief Harald Krüger said in a statement. “[The principle] will also ensure our success in Brazil as an important future market.”

The location of the new BMW plant is the Brazilian city of Araquari, and the site will include a body shop, a paint shop and an assembly facility. The plant will only be set up to produce 30,000 vehicles initially but gradually BMW will expand capacity.

Models destined to be built at the new plant include the 1-Series, 3-Series, X1 and X3, as well as the MINI Cooper Countryman. Future versions of the X1 and Countryman will share a platform, which is why BMW will be able to economically build both at a single plant. It’s not clear if the models built at the plant will be limited to sale in South America.

Once built, the plant will extend BMW’s production network, which currently comprises 29 production and assembly facilities in 14 countries. Other luxury makes that have announced plans to build vehicles in Brazil include Jaguar Land Rover as well as Audi and Mercedes-Benz.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to BMW to open up plant in Brazil
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2013/1217/BMW-to-open-up-plant-in-Brazil
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe