BMW ROSSLYN PLANT STARTS 2012 3 SERIES PRODUCTION

BMW South Africa has kicked off production of the all-new 3 Series sedan. The car will be produced at the company’s factory in Rosslyn, north of Pretoria. BMW says it increased the number of robots at the plant from 99 to 149 in order to meet expected demand. Every 3 Series have been produced in Rosslyn and since 1999, exported also.

With an investment of about R2.2 billion between 2009 and 2012, capacity has been increased almost twofold. From today the plant is capable of churning out over 90 000 cars every year, both right and left-hand drive for local and export markets. We don’t produce every 3 Series model though. For instance, Coupes, Convertibles and M models are not from Rosslyn.

In the last five years, says BMW, plant Rosslyn has reduced resources utilised in production considerably. The production process now uses 25% less energy, 50% less water and 50% less waste, all while producing 25% less carbon emissions per car produced. At the same time production has gone up. The E36 model for instance averaged about 19 000 cars a year. Its successor the E46 (commonly known as the g-string), went to 38 500 cars between 1998 and 2005. The last car, the E90, averaged 49 000 units per annum, built from 2005 to 2012.