BMW, SGL triple carbon fiber production in Washington

Moses Lake, Washington – Due to the high demand for carbon fiber in automotive production, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers is going to triple the capacity of the carbon fiber plant in Moses Lake.

Joint venture partners, SGL Group and BMW Group, announced the expansion will be funded by an investment of $200 million, in addition to the previously invested $100 million.

The site expansion, scheduled to be completed by early 2015, will make the plant in Moses Lake the world’s largest carbon fiber plant. With the anticipated creation of 120 new jobs, the headcount will rise to about 200 people. Due to the automated production processes, the expansion of the site will make it possible for the BMW Group to apply carbon fiber material also in other model series in the future.

At present, the Moses Lake plant operates two production lines, exclusively for BMW i3 and i8 electric cars, with an annual output of about 3,000 tons of carbon fiber. This summer, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers will commission a third and fourth production line in Moses Lake, thus doubling the plant’s capacity to 6,000 tons per year.

“With its highly automated carbon fiber production and stringent quality standards, Moses Lake is setting new standards in the industry. At present, the site is the world’s fastest growing carbon fiber producer. Together with the BMW Group, we are doing pioneering work to establish carbon fiber reinforced plastic as a material in large-series automotive production,” explains Dr. Jürgen Köhler, CEO of SGL Group.

Dr. Klaus Draeger, board member purchasing and supplier network at BMW AG, adds, “CFRP is a key material for the automotive industry of the 21st century. In our endeavor to identify increasingly lightweight materials in order to reduce a vehicle’s weight and thus its fuel consumption and carbon emissions, this material plays a crucial role. As part of an intelligent mix of materials, we will apply carbon also beyond our BMW i and BMW M models in the future.”

Andreas Wüllner, CEO of SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers, says, “In the course of only four years, SGL Automotive Carbon Fibers has managed to become the world’s largest carbon fiber production site. The automotive industry will increasingly turn to CFRP because it is a material of the future.”

Source: BMW, SGL Group