NedCar Plant to Begin Mini Production in 2014

BMW AG confirms it will begin sourcing some of its Mini small cars from the Netherlands in the second half of 2014.

The cars will be produced at Mitsubishi Motors Corp.'s former Netherlands Car BV (NedCar) plant. BMW acknowledged in June that it might hire the plant's new owner, Dutch busmaker VDL Group, to build Minis there under contract.

Mitsubishi said in February it would stop making its own vehicles at the NedCar facility by the end of this year. The factory has capacity to build 200,000 vehicles annually but had been operating well below that level.

BMW is building Minis in Oxford, England, at an annual rate of 250,000 units, but that plant can't keep up with demand. The company also sources Countryman and Paceman variants from Magna Steyr in Graz, Austria, under a contract assembly deal that will continue.

BMW board member Harald Krueger tells reporters at the Los Angeles auto show that BMW has not decided which Mini models will be made at the NedCar factory.