Good news for BMW: what’s happening with production

Mini production at the BMW plant in Oxford, England, will be suspended for two weeks.

BMW will gradually resume production at factories in Munich and Dingolfing in Germany next week, a company spokesman said.

The carmaker suspended production earlier this week due to supply chain problems caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Mini production at the BMW plant in Oxford, England, will be suspended for two weeks, the company said.

Other factories in Germany and the rest of Europe were operating normally, but the carmaker expected new outages due to the crisis in Ukraine and the shortage of chips, the statement said.

European carmakers, including Volkswagen, Porsche and Audi, are struggling to get crucial wiring, as suppliers in western Ukraine have been blocked by Russia’s invasion, forcing them to cut production.

The situation is volatile

German cable manufacturer Leoni, with two factories in Ukraine employing about 7,000 workers, said it was stepping up its efforts to help compensate for disruptions in Ukraine by adding capacity to other locations while giving priority to the safety of its employees.

“Logistics in and out of Ukraine is a major challenge, especially because of the partially chaotic situation at the EU border,” a Leoni spokesman said in a statement.

German car companies and suppliers maintain about 49 production units in Russia and Ukraine, according to German car lobby group VDA.

BMW also said it had stopped exporting cars to Russia and would stop production in the country.

Last year, BMW assembled about 12,000 vehicles at a factory in the Russian slave Kaliningrad, which BMW has been operating with local partner Avtotor for more than 20 years.

Sales of BMW vehicles in Russia rose 10 percent to 46,802 last year, according to the US-based US Industry Association in Moscow.