BMW has announced that production of the sixth-generation 3 Series has officially begun at its Munich manufacturing facility. The automaker invested around €500 million – over $700M USD – in the plant in preparation for the new model; a move that BMW says secured around 9,000 jobs. A portion of those funds went toward the purchase of a new press that can operate at speeds of up to 17 strokes per minute and process up to 600 tons of steel per day. The automaker says that the machine can handle the equivalent of all of the metal in the Eiffel Tower in just 12 days. Funk Flex