Home, the first definition in the Chinese dictionary, is "the place where relatives live together" Although it has now entered a highly developed information society, the home is still the most simple value of the Chinese.
Our country is full of vitality and at the same time fascinating. Many people who were not born and grew up in Slovakia will be deeply attracted to and eventually become a part of it – people, and businesses. Since the reform and opening up, China has embraced every sincere and friendly enterprise that is willing to seek common development with China with charming charm and open mind; many enterprises have also contributed to China's take-off and made suggestions for China's future with practical actions after taking root in China.
"Every time I come to this great country, I feel like I'm coming home, because it's full of energy and countless family-like partners." Not long ago, BMW held the 2022 "New Year Online Annual Meeting", and Dr. Peter, a director of the BMW Group and responsible for corporate finance and Chinese affairs, expressed this sentiment. As Dr. Peter said, BMW has become an indispensable part of China's high-speed development train through nearly 20 years of deep cultivation in China, and has fulfilled the promise of "in China, for China" with practical actions.
According to relevant data, the BMW Group currently has more than 25,000 employees and more than 600 dealer outlets in China. The joint venture BMW Brilliance has become the largest taxpayer in Shenyang for 15 consecutive years, with a total tax payment of 38 billion yuan in 2020. At the same time, by the end of 2020, BMW Brilliance's local suppliers in China have reached 400.
In the first ten months of this year, BMW Brilliance produced 560,000 units, an increase of 17% year-on-year. Looking at the global market, the BMW Group delivered a total of 1,932,236 new cars in the first three quarters of 2021, of which 669,637 were delivered to China, which means that one out of every three new BMW cars was delivered to Chinese customers – creating a win-win situation has become the most appropriate portrayal between BMW and the Chinese market.
Of course, this is only part of what BMW has achieved in its second home in China. Peter said: "China has become a global leader in electric vehicles and a key driver of digitalization. Now, China is steadfastly promoting high-quality growth and advocating for a circular economy. In the BMW Group's transformation to electrification, digitalization and sustainable development, China is the best choice and partner. "BMW's China strategy will be fully upgraded in the next few years, and BMW will work with China as a family to contribute more to China's development."
Accelerate the electrification process
First of all, BMW will bring more green travel experiences to families, that is, BMW users in China.
As we all know, China has become the world's largest new energy vehicle market. BMW has achieved undisputed success in the field of fuel vehicles, and Chinese users are also full of expectations for BMW's next phase of electric vehicle products.
In 2021, BMW iX3 sales are expected to reach 20,000 units. In the next 2022, the BMW brand's lineup of electric vehicles in the Chinese market will be expanded to five models, including the innovative BMW iX, the innovative BMWWi4 and the pure electric BMW 3 series to be produced in Shenyang – which will also be BMW's first domestic pure electric sedan. By the end of 2023, BMW will provide a total of 13 pure electric products for the Chinese market.
In the upstream and downstream industrial chain of electric mobility, BMW will also continue to strengthen its layout and enhance its comprehensive strength. In 2017, BMW Brilliance became the first high-end car brand to establish a power battery center. By 2020, the second phase of the high-voltage power battery center will be completed and put into operation, and more than 100,000 power batteries have been produced so far.
By the end of 2021, BMW will provide a total of 360,000 public charging piles to Chinese users, including about 150,000 DC fast charging piles.
In addition, in terms of sales and service, BMW is also continuing to promote network upgrades for electric vehicles. At present, more than 500 of the more than 600 dealer outlets across the country have completed the business certification of BMW i. Next year, BMW will also pilot the BMW i City Center store concept to meet the new experience needs of Chinese users.
BMW will set 2025 as an important node in strategic transformation. At that time, BMW will release a "new generation" model with a new IT and software architecture, a new generation of high-performance electric drives and batteries, and a sustainable concept throughout the entire product life cycle. In the development of "new generation" models, the specific needs of the Chinese market will be put first. BMW expects that in 2025, sales of electric vehicles will account for a quarter of the Group's total sales in the Chinese market.
Driving digital innovation together
At the same time, BMW will actively embrace the wave of innovation in China, home, and work with other partners at home to jointly promote digital innovation covering research and development, production, vehicle intelligence and digital services.
As we all know, China currently has one of the world's best innovation soil. To this end, BMW did not hesitate to build the largest R&D system in China outside Of Germany, with a total R&D team involving more than 1,650 people in 4 locations.
Among them, Beijing R&D Center, as the earliest engineering R&D institution, is mainly responsible for vehicle engineering, testing and certification. The Shanghai R&D center focuses on digital products, software development, and links to the local digital ecosystem and innovation circles, while shanghai also has a dedicated design team that can subtly understand the aesthetics and needs of the younger generation of users. The Shenyang R&D center, due to its proximity to the production base, focuses on the development of local electric vehicles and the research and development of domestic models after mass production.
In terms of software research and development, the My BMW App, jointly developed by Lingyue Digital and BMW's R&D department, has more than 3.4 million users, of which more than 1.4 million are monthly active users.
In 2021, BMW's innovative presence in China expands to a new city, Nanjing. First of all, BMW ArcherMind Joint Venture was formally established in Nanjing, with the task of using China's local software power to deepen the development of in-vehicle software, and BMW set up a Lingyue branch in Nanjing, focusing on the company's internal IT architecture.
In addition, BMW has also actively established cooperation with many Chinese technology companies to jointly develop the digital ecology in the car, and now has more than 80 signed partners in the field of digitalization, and applications such as WeChat will continue to appear on BMW's future models.
Firmly on the path to sustainable development
Sustainability has always been the cornerstone of BMW's corporate strategy. Especially after China set the "3060" double carbon target, bmw, as a member of this family, put sustainable development at the core of strategic development.
The most distinctive thing about BMW's sustainability is that it runs through the entire life cycle of the car – from the supply chain, the production side, the use to the recycling.
For example, BMW Brilliance was awarded the "2020 Enterprise Best Practice Award for Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals" by the United Nations Global Compact China Network in 2020 for its achievements in sustainable management of the supply chain, and is the only automotive company among the 20 awardees; on the production side, since 2014, BMW Brilliance has released the "Sustainability Report" for eight consecutive years to disclose its ecological footprint to the public.
In addition, since the end of 2019, BMW Brilliance's Shenyang production site has begun to use 100% renewable electricity. In 2021, BMW Brilliance once again ranked first in the "Green Development Index of Automobile Enterprises" and won the honor of "National Green Demonstration Factory" for the fourth consecutive year.
At the product level, BMW also pays attention to the recycling of resources. Take the innovative BMW iX, for example, which has applied hydroelectric power generation in the production process and no longer uses rare earth materials. In the high-voltage power battery it is equipped with, the amount of secondary nickel has reached 50%, and the share of secondary aluminum in the shell has reached 30%.
BMW's strategic upgrade can be described by a string of simple numbers: "1" refers to the "China First" principle; "2" refers to the fact that both BMW and MINI brands are rooted in China; "3" refers to the firm transformation along the three directions of electrification, digitalization and sustainability; "4" refers to the four R&D and digital bases in Beijing, Shanghai, Shenyang and Nanjing; "5" refers to the five BMW pure electric models that will be presented to Chinese customers in 2022; "2025" Represents the upcoming "new generation" models in 2025; "200 million" and "1.5" represent the BMW Group's carbon reduction targets to 2030 and commitment to the 1.5 degree temperature control target of the Paris Agreement, respectively.
BMW's strategic upgrade in China maintains a high degree of synergy with the development goals of the Chinese family, not only giving priority to the Chinese market and the needs of Chinese users, but also continuously strengthening the win-win situation with other small partners at home. "There is an old Chinese saying that 'it is difficult for those who lift alone to rise, but it is easy for those who do it.'" As Dr Peter puts it, "Collaboration is the key to moving towards a common goal." Working with the local government, China's innovative forces, partners, users, fans and media, BMW will firmly walk with China. BMW's home is in China.