BMW starts mass-producing Gen 6 batteries in Shenyang, China

In Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning province in northeast China, BMW has started mass production of its sixth-generation high-voltage batteries. The plant is the third site in the company's global Gen 6 battery network, after Debrecen in Hungary and Ilbach-Straßkirchen in Germany. Its 10 billion yuan ($1.49 billion) project covers a planned 240,000 square meters, about five times the size of BMW's existing battery facilities. Construction began in May 2023.

The technical shift is in the cells. BMW uses large cylindrical cells of the 46 series, about 46 millimetres in diameter. Tesla brought this format into mass production in 2020, and until recently the diameter was seen as a physical limit: a fatter cell is harder to cool, and its core can overheat. According to the Chinese tech outlet ifanr, the breakthrough is a "full-tab" design, where the electrode edge forms one continuous conductive surface, so current flows out over a short path instead of crossing long metal foils. That cuts internal resistance by 80%, which lowers heat during charging and discharging and leaves room for more reactive chemistry: a high-nickel cathode of above 90% and a silicon-carbon anode. A round steel shell also holds the silicon anode, which swells as it fills with lithium, more evenly than a rectangular case would.

The road test is the headline. BMW says a Neue Klasse i3 50L, with a 113.4-kWh battery, covered 1,213 km without recharging, reaching its destination with 1% left, and recorded combined consumption of 8.8 kWh per 100 km. The route mixed expressways, national highways, rural roads and city streets. BMW itself stresses that this is a single road test rather than a certified range under a standard cycle. Ifanr notes that the route differs from the highway-heavy test that a Chinese automotive media outlet ran on three electric sedans around Beijing, so the two results cannot be compared directly.

For Chinese drivers, the most concrete change is the long-wheelbase iX3, built for China only. Pre-orders opened on August 21, deliveries are scheduled to begin in November, and prices start at 269,900 yuan ($39,810). Shenyang is also BMW's only site outside Germany that makes its Energy Master control unit, and its only site worldwide that combines casting, engine, high-voltage battery and Energy Master production. BMW says all three core components of the Gen 6 electric drive system will now be made in China. The battery plant will initially supply the iX3 and i3 in China.

Several questions remain open. The 1,213 km figure is not a certified range. Ifanr says the cells are supplied by Chinese makers CATL and EVE Energy, and it points to the cost of the wet-process production that BMW has chosen instead of the immature dry-electrode method: wet lines need bigger plants and more energy. Its plans for nearly 20 new models in China by 2027 are also plans, not deliveries.