BMW will decide whether to build its new electric Mini car in Britain or elsewhere by the end of September, its board member for sales told Reuters, in a test of the country’s ability to continue to attract investment as it leaves the EU.
Mini makes about 70 per cent of its 360,000 compact cars at its Oxford plant in southern England but the car industry is concerned about the effect any loss of unfettered access to the EU, its largest export market, could have on plants after Brexit.
BMW is deciding between its English site, a plant in the Netherlands where it has built more of its conventional line-up in recent years, and its Germany plants at Leipzig and Regensburg for the new low-emissions variant.
The firm’s board member for sales told Reuters that the electric Mini investment, likely to be worth tens of millions of pounds, would come in the next three months.
