A company spokesperson said that the failure of an overhead power line in southern Germany had paralysed production at Europe’s largest BMW plant in Dingolfing.

The spokesperson said that both the early and the late shifts were cancelled in the two assembly halls, with several thousand employees affected by the stoppage.

As a result, 1,600 cars could not be built.

An overhead power line failure in the Landshut area last Thursday paralysed rail traffic at the end of last week.

Completed cars from Dingolfing could not be transported, meaning that BMW did not have enough space to continue production.

The problem has been solved in the meantime, and the cars in question are now being transported.

BMW added that production should normally be running again by Tuesday.