BMW Group confirms massive investment into BMW SA’s Rosslyn plant for the production of the next-gen X3.

As part of the 50 years in SA anniversary, BMW SA has announced a R4.2 billion investment by BMW Group into its plant at Rosslyn, near Pretoria.

BMW has quite the manufacturing legacy in South Africa and the Rosslyn plant has manufactured over 1.6 million vehicles to date. The Rosslyn plant was also the first plant that BMW built outside of Germany. These cars have been for both local consumption and exported to over 40 countries. Right now, it currently manufactures the X3 medium-sized SUV, but in the past, the 3 Series. 5 Series, 7 Series and 1800/2000 were all made there.

Dr Milan Nedeljkovic, Chairman of the Board of Management for BMW Group SA said, “From 2024 we will produce the BMW X3 in SA as a plug-in hybrid and export it to the world. To this end, the BMW Group is investing R4.2 billion in the site over 5 years.”

The investment by BMW Global is multi-pronged, with the upgrading of facilities to support the assembly of the next-gen BMW X3 plug-in hybrid as well as the next-gen X3 internal combustion-powered models later on. There’s also a corporate/social responsibility program which sees BMW Group partner with UNICEF to provide R30 million towards primary and secondary school learners.

This investment secures over 20 000 jobs, both those employed directly by BMW SA and those indirectly working via the supply chain. There will be additional training rolled out for the workers and more than 300 staff will receive specialised training on the brand-new X3 plug-in hybrid.

What is a plug-in hybrid, you may ask? Essentially, it’s a hybrid vehicle which features both an internal combustion engine (petrol/diesel) as well as a battery and electric motor. It can be charged by an external power source as well as its own engine. It can run on pure electric power for zero emission quiet running as well as deploy both powertrains for full-bore acceleration sprints.

We can expect to see the all-new BMW X3 revealed before the end of 2023 with production of the plug-in hybrid model towards the end of 2024.