BMW has started building the gas-powered versions of its eighth-generation 3 Series at the Dingolfing plant in Germany, putting the G50 sedan back in a factory that last made the car more than 20 years ago. Production began a little over a month after the Sept. 30, 2026 reveal. American buyers are expected to see the car in early 2027.
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The restart changes where the 3 Series comes from. For the first time, production splits by powertrain, with combustion cars built in Dingolfing and the all-electric i3 built in Munich, the city where the first 3 Series rolled off the line in 1975. The U.S. timetable is less settled than the German one, and the sources disagree on small but telling details.
Dingolfing takes the G50 back from Munich
Autoblog’s report, by news editor Anton Andres, says the first batch has rolled off the line and that Munich will become an exclusively electric plant. Dingolfing built 3 Series cars decades ago, then handed them off as plants outside Germany took on more volume, and it has spent recent years on the 5 Series and 7 Series. Christoph Schröder, who heads the plant, said BMW is delighted that the sedan is returning, according to autoevolution’s account of the company announcement.
The scale of the site explains the pride. Dingolfing is BMW’s largest European plant, with about 18,000 employees, and it builds roughly 1,350 vehicles a day across the 4 Series, 5 Series, 7 Series, iX and M models. The same account says it has built about 1.15 million 3 Series cars since 1980, and that BMW has sold about 18 million 3 Series worldwide since 1975. The outgoing G2X generation ran from 2018 to 2026, and earlier cars carried the E21, E30, E36, E46, E9X and F3X codes across five decades.
Autoblog says output is already in full swing and the European rollout is under way.
BMWBLOG had flagged the changeover on Oct. 30, when it described G50 output at Dingolfing as scheduled to begin in November, and it reports that four-cylinder gasoline engines power the more affordable models while the M350 xDrive carries a 3.0-liter inline-six. BMW has not confirmed a G51 Touring or an M3 Touring, the site notes, though building them at Dingolfing would make sense if they are approved.
The supply chain around the car is European. BMW’s launch release says core drive components come from Plant Steyr in Austria and the high-voltage batteries for the electric i3 from Plant Irlbach-Straßkirchen in Bavaria. Autoblog, citing a Nov. 2 first-drive review by Jared Rosenholtz, adds that the 3 Series uses an evolution of the outgoing car’s chassis, coded G50, while the i3 sits on a dedicated electric platform coded NA0 that was never designed to take a combustion engine.
A four-cylinder 330 and a six-cylinder M350 xDrive
The gas range opens with two four-cylinder petrol models and tops out with the M350 xDrive. In BMW Group’s launch release, dated Sept. 30, the M350 xDrive pairs a 3.0-liter six-cylinder petrol engine with a 48-volt mild-hybrid system for 443 hp in German-market trim and a 0-100 km/h time of 4.1 seconds, electronically limited to 250 km/h. A plug-in hybrid is due to join the range over the coming year.
U.S. specifications differ slightly. MotorWeek lists the rear-drive 330 at 255 hp and 295 lb-ft from a turbocharged 2.0-liter four, with an eight-speed automatic, 5.9 seconds to 60 mph and a price of $51,250 including destination. The 330 xDrive costs about $2,000 more, and the M350 xDrive, rated at 437 hp and 428 lb-ft, starts at no less than $67,250. All gas models carry the mild-hybrid system.
The early-2027 window for the U.S.
Autoblog calls its U.S. arrival date an estimate, not a BMW announcement: first quarter of 2027, as a 2028 model-year car, with BMW USA’s official word still pending. MotorWeek says the car will be “available early next year,” and autoevolution reports that U.S. order books open in the first quarter of 2027. BMW’s own launch release gives no U.S. date. The three accounts point in the same direction without agreeing on the details.
A naming wrinkle remains. BMW and several outlets call the car the 2027 3 Series, while Autoblog expects the first deliveries to carry 2028 model-year labels. Toward the top of the range, Autoblog calls the M350 “pretty much a sure bet” for American buyers, expects an entry car called the 330 because BMW has dropped the trailing letter that once marked its gasoline models, and says a pure-combustion M3 is anticipated but not detailed.
Unanswered for now is how BMW will fit the plug-in hybrid, a Touring wagon and the M3 into the same plant, and which of them reach U.S. dealers in the first wave. BMW has promised a plug-in hybrid “coming soon,” Autoblog says, and autoevolution says Dingolfing will add plug-in hybrid mass production in 2027. Until BMW USA publishes its own timetable, early 2027 remains an expectation rather than a date.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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