The carmaker had previously said it would spend over one billion euros on the Debrecen factory, due to open in 2025 and ramp up to producing 150,000 cars a year.

"The close link between battery assembly and vehicle production is part of our strategy," said Markus Fallboehmer, Senior Vice President of battery production at BMW.

BMW assembles batteries at three sites in Germany, as well as its U.S. Spartanburg site and its Shenyang plant in China, and will source battery cells in Europe from Chinese battery producers CATL and EVE.

($1 = 0.9612 euros)

(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Riham Alkousaa)