BMW Group is investing approximately €2bn ($2.26bn) into German car and battery production for the eighth-generation BMW 3 Series.

The company said that around €1bn had been allocated to upgrading its vehicle plants in Munich and Dingolfing, with a further €1bn dedicated to the new battery plant in Irlbach-Straßkirchen, Lower Bavaria.

The all-electric BMW i3 is being produced at the Munich parent plant, which BMW said has been heavily modernised into an “electric only” site.

Combustion-engine and plug-in hybrid versions of the 3 Series will be made at Dingolfing, where a new 3 Series line has been added to the body shop.

Irlbach-Straßkirchen will assemble sixth-generation high-voltage batteries, with deliveries of battery systems to Munich for the i3 due from October.

BMW said these standards and guidelines will also be applied, under its “local for local” principle, to i3 and 3 Series production at San Luis Potosí in Mexico and to a modified 3 Series for the Chinese market built in Shenyang.

The company added that the 3 Series marks the next stage in the gradual introduction of Neue Klasse technologies across its core portfolio, with about 40 new or revised models using them due on the road by the end of 2027.

BMW’s annual output in Germany tops one million vehicles, around a quarter of national car production and above its vehicle sales in Europe.

About 55% of its employees work in the country.

Around 18 million 3 Series vehicles have been produced since manufacturing started in 1975, 15 million of them in Germany.

Munich has built the model without a break since then, while Dingolfing has done so intermittently since 1980.

BMW Group production management board member Raymond Wittmann said: “We are investing in value creation, competitive production and job security in Germany. The new BMW 3 Series is the proof. We are in control of the transformation – from development to industrialisation and high-efficiency production in Munich and Dingolfing.”