What does the BMW iFACTORY look like in daily operation?

One million is the number: that is how many vehicles the BMW Group has already moved driverless through its plants using Automated Driving in Production (AFW). At MINI Plant Oxford alone, the technology accounted for more than 53,000 automated journeys over the past year, and across the network around 3,500 automated journeys take place every day. Oxford is the fourth BMW Group plant to use the system, after Dingolfing, Leipzig and Regensburg. What began as a pilot in Dingolfing in 2022 has developed from a technology trial into a scalable series application that is being rolled out step by step across the global production network. Plant Spartanburg is next in line.

The breadth behind the number is what makes it meaningful. AFW is not a single-plant solution: the technology can be adapted across different sites, vehicle architectures and production sequences, and the vehicles react dynamically to their surroundings – to people, other vehicles, automated guided vehicles, logistics traffic and temporary obstacles. Oxford adds a new step. It is the first BMW Group site where automatically moved vehicles are connected directly to existing plant controls: the AFW system positions the vehicle precisely at a lifting device where a defined work step is carried out, enabled by a cloud-based solution. Technically, AFW combines external sensors, a cloud architecture and sophisticated motion-planning software; LiDAR sensors along the routes continuously capture the surroundings, and Plant Dingolfing operates the largest LiDAR infrastructure in Europe. The technology was developed together with the Swiss company Embotech, a partnership initiated through the BMW Startup Garage.

Physical AI is moving into series production, and the BMW Group is putting a great deal of its own know-how into training it. The engineers do not simply work alongside these systems – they teach them. Every grip, every motion, every adjustment is passed on by the people who know the production process better than anyone: experienced production employees. Their expertise is what makes the integration of Physical AI into series production work in the first place.

The point is not to replace that experience but to free it up. Physical AI relieves employees of monotonous tasks, which allows them to concentrate on higher-value work. And the collaboration itself is working: employees are happy to work with Physical AI, without reservations, and they enjoy doing it. Human knowledge is the foundation of intelligent production.

The Cell Recycling Competence Center (CRCC) in Salching, just 16 kilometres from Irlbach-Straßkirchen, went into operation in December 2025 and recovers valuable raw materials using a direct recycling process developed in-house by the BMW Group. Direct recycling allows residual materials from battery cell production, including complete battery cells, to be mechanically dismantled. The raw materials are not entirely reverted to their original state but are instead fed directly back into the cell production cycle, which removes the conventional, energy-intensive chemical or thermal processing step. Once fully operational, the annual volume of recycled battery cell material will be in the mid-double-digit tonne range.

What the CRCC recovers goes straight back into pilot cell production at the Cell Manufacturing Competence Center (CMCC) in Parsdorf. That short distance is the point of the Bavarian battery network: research at the Battery Cell Competence Center in Munich, near-series cell manufacturing in Parsdorf, recycling in Salching and high-voltage battery production in Irlbach-Straßkirchen – research, production and recycling connected along one value chain. The Cell Recycling Competence Center is built and operated by Encory GmbH, a joint venture between the BMW Group and the Interzero Group, while the intellectual property for the recycling method remains fully with the BMW Group.