BMW has completed a $1.7 billion investment in South Carolina, expanding Plant Spartanburg and building a new Plant Woodruff dedicated to EV battery productionThe BMW iX5 becomes the first fully electric BMW assembled in the United States, with production starting at Plant Spartanburg before the end of 2026The new X5 made its world premiere at the same event, the first BMW offered with five distinct drivetrain options on a single assembly line Four years ago, BMW stood up and made a number of specific commitments about its future in the United States. On June 30, 2026, the company delivered on them. At a "Home of X" event at Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina, BMW confirmed the completion of a $1.7 billion investment, the world premiere of the fifth-generation X5, and the confirmation that the iX5 will be the first fully electric BMW ever assembled on American soil. What BMW Built The $1.7 billion investment covered two distinct sites. The first is Plant Spartanburg itself, BMW's largest facility in the world, which has been expanded and upgraded to support a wider range of drivetrain technologies on a single assembly line. Since opening in 1994, the plant has assembled more than 7.3 million vehicles, exported nearly 3 million of them valued at over $113 billion, and in 2025 alone produced 412,799 X models, the seventh time in its history the plant cleared 400,000 units in a year. Around half of Spartanburg's output is exported, with the European SUV market among its most significant destinations. Read More Ferrari's New Manual Gearbox Isn't Really a Manual and That Makes It More Interesting The second site is Plant Woodruff, an entirely new facility built from the ground up in nearby Woodruff, South Carolina. Its job is electrification. Woodruff assembles high-voltage battery packs for the electric X models being built at Spartanburg, and it uses a Cell-to-Pack manufacturing process, assembling cells directly into the battery housing rather than into individual modules first. The result is a more compact, efficient battery pack that can accommodate more cells within the same physical footprint, increasing energy density without requiring a larger overall pack. Both plants operate under BMW's iFACTORY principles. AI-supported quality control cameras monitor the assembly line in real time, feeding data through BMW's in-house AIQX platform to flag issues and provide immediate feedback to workers on the line. Self-correcting robotics and digital twin technology, where processes are refined in a virtual environment before deployment on the physical line, underpin production at both sites. Plant Spartanburg is also piloting humanoid robots from Figure AI to assist with physically demanding tasks, following a successful initial pilot completed in August 2024.Together, the two plants now form a single integrated production network. BMW Group's US operations support more than 120,000 jobs across the country and contribute more than $43 billion annually to the US economy. What It Produces Plant Spartanburg will begin production of the new fifth-generation X5 in August 2026, followed by the iX5 before the end of the year. The iX5 60 xDrive uses sixth-generation eDrive technology, an 800-volt electrical architecture, and a cylindrical-cell battery pack offering up to 845 km of WLTP range, around 525 miles under European testing. The iX5 Hydrogen, BMW's first hydrogen-powered production vehicle, will arrive at a later stage with an estimated 750 km of range from a third-generation fuel cell system developed alongside Toyota. Read More Aston Martin DBX S Review: The Super SUV That Actually Works The broader significance of the new X5 is its drivetrain breadth. It is the first BMW model ever offered with five distinct powertrain options: a petrol mild hybrid, a diesel mild hybrid, a plug-in hybrid, the fully electric iX5, and eventually the iX5 Hydrogen. Plant Spartanburg is now the first facility in BMW's entire global production network capable of assembling all five on a single assembly line, a manufacturing achievement that is rarer than it might appear. "Our strategic course remains unchanged," said Milan Nedeljković, Chairman of the Board of Management. "We will continue to pursue the same technology-open strategy that has made BMW successful and will continue to make us successful in the future." By 2030, BMW has committed to assembling at least six fully electric models in the United States, all supported by batteries from Plant Woodruff. Read More The Second Pagani Huayra 70 Is Here and It Sounds as Good as It Looks The X5 has sold more than 3.1 million units globally since its 1999 launch, a third of which came from the US market. Building the next generation, including its electric variant, in South Carolina is as much about proximity to BMW's most important X5 market as it is a statement about the direction of American manufacturing.
