OREANDA-NEWS. BMW soon plans to introduce the X5 SUV with an extended wheelbase for the Chinese market, where many brands offer various models in LWB configurations. According to Automotive News with reference to BMW's own sources, the X5 crossover, which is currently being assembled in the US, will soon hit the assembly line in China as well. The new production will not affect the production of the SUV at the Spartanburg plant. The exact start date of production of the X5 in the PRC has not yet been announced.

Insiders say the X5's production launch in China should take place tentatively in the second quarter of next year at a plant operated by BMW's Brilliance joint venture. "To meet strong global demand for the BMW X5, we are expanding our global production capacity for the popular sports car. We will add localised production of the BMW X5 in the PRC for the Chinese market," a spokesperson for the Bavarian brand told Automotive News. From January to September this year, BMW sold nearly 700,000 vehicles of all its models in China.

That's an increase of nearly 20 percent over last year and about a third of all BMW sales combined from Europe, Asia and the Americas. In the US, BMW delivered a total of 41,770 X5s in the first nine months of the year. It is known that the X5 for the Chinese market differs not only in length (+130 millimeters), but also in height (+3 millimeters). The rear door is larger, but the rest of the exterior is the same. The axle spacing (3,105 millimetres) in the BMW X5 L is exactly the same as in the X7.