Recently, a document suspected to come from within the BMW Group was exposed. The document specifically introduces the beam and the brand positioning of MINI, and said that the MINI brand model will be produced in the future at the beam Zhangjiagang factory and the BMW Brilliance Shenyang factory respectively, which can be described as a good play of "one woman and two marriages".
Judging from the current situation of the Chinese market, the total sales of new energy vehicles in China in 2021 will be 2.989 million units, accounting for 14.8% of the sales share of the domestic narrow passenger car market, which shows that traditional fuel vehicles are still the absolute main force. For the already niche MINI brand, putting the new fuel-powered model on BMW Brilliance will make the BMW Group, which accounts for up to 75% of the equity in the joint venture, get greater benefits, while the 2 pure electric new cars with lower sales expectations are left to the beam car formed by the Great Wall and BMW 50:50 joint venture, I wonder if Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, will be "angry"?
Beam Auto's Zhangjiagang plant has an annual production capacity of 160,000 units, and will be put into production in the future, respectively, the MINI brand pure electric models and the Great Wall brand pure electric vehicles, MINI electric vehicles will be exported overseas in addition to supplying the Chinese market, and the first model is expected to achieve mass production in May 2022 and be put on sale in 2023.
In other words, since the establishment of a joint venture with Great Wall Motors to set up Beam Motors, BMW Group has wanted to focus on enlarging the MINI brand, and the above documents also confirm this, "MINI's brand positioning has nothing to do with the origin of MINI." Our focus is not on where to produce which model, but on increasing MINI sales while maintaining MINI's brand positioning and reputation."