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BMW to announce location of new plant in Mexico in July

Volkswagen manufactures in Mexico. Soon Audi will as well, and Mercedes-Benz is said to be working on a deal to assemble some of its cars at a Nissan plant in Mexico too. That leaves BMW out of the mix of German automakers building cars South of the Border, but that may soon be rectified, as well.
According to Automotive News, the Bavarian automaker is preparing to announce the site of its first Mexican assembly plant as soon as July, now just two months away. BMW already builds cars for North American consumption at its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, but has reportedly been keen to capitalize on cheaper labor and the benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement to supply vehicles to the United States and Canada especially.
When BMW does announce the site of the plant - reportedly narrowed down to either Hidalgo or San Luis Potosi - it is tipped to work its way up to 100,000 vehicles per year at the new location, potentially to include the 3 Series as well as smaller, front-drive models, including Minis.

Poor headlights cause 40 cars to miss IIHS Top Safety Pick rating

Over the past few months, we've noticed a number of cars and SUVs that have come incredibly close to earning one of the IIHS's highest accolades, the Top Safety Pick rating. They have great crash test scores and solid automatic emergency braking and forward collision warning systems. What trips them up is headlights. That got us wondering, how many vehicles are there that are coming up short because they don't have headlights that meet the organization's criteria for an "Acceptable" or "Good" rating. This is a revision made after 2017, a year in which headlights weren't factored in for this specific award. This is also why why some vehicles, such as the Ford F-150, might have had the award last year, but have lost it for this year. We reached out to someone at IIHS to find out. He responded with the following car models. Depending on how you count, a whopping 40 models crash well enough to receive the rating, but don't get it because their headlights are either "Poor" or "Marginal." We say depending on how you count because the IIHS actual counts truck body styles differently, and the Infiniti Q70 is a special case. Apparently the version of the Q70 that has good headlights doesn't have adequate forward collision prevention technology. And the one that has good forward collision tech doesn't have good enough headlights. We've provided the entire list of vehicles below in alphabetical order. Interestingly, it seems the Volkswagen Group is having the most difficulty providing good headlights with its otherwise safe cars. It had the most models on the list at 9 split between Audi and Volkswagen. GM is next in line with 7 models. It is worth noting again that though these vehicles have subpar headlights and don't quite earn Top Safety Pick awards, that doesn't mean they're unsafe. They all score well enough in crash testing and forward collision prevention that they would get the coveted award if the lights were better.

BMW is the US auto industry's leading exporter

Which automaker do you think ships the most cars out of North America, one of the Detroit Three or perhaps one of the Japanese automakers? Nope. It turns out the BMW's Spartanburg, SC, factory is the biggest automotive exporter from the continent in the United States. According to a recent profile by Bloomberg looking at the plant's 20th anniversary, Bimmer's southern ops sends out more vehicles than all of Michigan combined.
When the Spartanburg factory opened up in 1994, its success was hardly assured, largely because of South Carolina's relatively small economy at the time. However, BMW picked the site because of its proximity to East Coast shipping that made it easier to move engines and transmission in from Germany and export vehicles back to Europe, according to Bloomberg. The Bavarians clearly made the right choice.
Today, the plant has developed into an absolute powerhouse. The factory currently assembles the X3, X4, X5 and X6 and exports about 70 percent of the vehicles built there. Things are only getting better. BMW is investing $1 billion through 2016 to boost annual production from the current 300,000 units up to 450,000 and to build a new flagship crossover called X7. The expansion also adds a further 800 jobs there to take total employment up to about 8,800. Including the latest financing, BMW has put over $7.3 billion into the factory since it opened, notes Bloomberg.