BMW to spend $237 million on battery cell center

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - BMW will bundle its battery cell expertise in a new competence center, the German luxury carmaker said on Friday, adding it would invest 200 million euros ($237 million) in the site over the next four years. "By producing battery-cell prototypes, we can analyse and fully understand the cell's value-creation processes. With this build-to-print expertise, we can enable potential suppliers to produce cells to our specifications," BMW board member Oliver Zipse said in a statement. "The knowledge we gain is very important to us, regardless of whether we produce the battery cells ourselves, or not." The center will open in early 2019, BMW said. ($1 = 0.8435 euros) (Reporting by Christoph Steitz)