BMW starts to export China-made iX3s

Beijing (Gasgoo)- Brilliance BMW, the German automaker’s joint venture in China, started to export China-made iX3s on November 11 from the Port of Dalian to 39 countries and districts, mainly to Europe ones. 

This was the first time for the joint venture to export vehicles in such an large scale. According to the automaker’s plan, it will export a total of 1,600 vehicles this year and increase the volume to 12,000 for next year.

The BMW iX3, with the fifth generation of BMW eDrive technology, boasts a power density 30 per cent higher than that of the previous generation, and can accelerate to 100 km/h in 6.8 seconds. Thanks to the new high-voltage storage system, the model has a range of up to 460 kilometres in the WLTP test cycle and up to 520 kilometres in the NEDC test cycle.

Photo credit: BMW Group

The BMW iX3 is the brand's first model to be manufactured for worldwide export at the joint venture production site in Shenyang. In September, the model was made available for order starting from RMB470,000 to RMB 510,000 and may officially go on sale during the Guangzhou Motor show.

At the beginning of October, the first BMW iX3 left the production line in Brilliance BMW’s Dadong plant. The battery electric Sports Activity Vehicle (SAV) model is built on the same line as the BMW X3 with combustion engine to ensure a high level of efficiency and flexibility in production.

More and more automakers export vehicles from China. In October, Tesla started to export the first China-made Model 3 cars to more than 10 European countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Switzerland. Chinese EV startup Xpeng Motors also started shipping Xpeng G3i SUVs to European countries in September.

The vehicle export volume continued to increase in October. According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, a total of 109,000 vehicles were exported from China last month, representing a month-on-month increase of 10.1% and a year-on-year increase of 25.7%. From January to October, the export volume reached 728,000 units, down by 12.7% from a year ago.