BMW on Wednesday announced a major investment in its U.S. plant to prepare it for production of electric lorries.
The automaker said it will certainly spend $1 billion on its plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, to prepare the site for EVs, plus an additional $700 million to construct a new battery plant in neighboring Woodruff, South Carolina, and employ 300 employees.
The Spartanburg plant is BMW’s largest on the planet, with a total 433,810 automobiles rolling off the line in 2021. It produces the X3, X4, X5, X6, as well as X7 lines, consisting of crossbreed variations of a few of those cars, as well as will certainly quickly add production of the brand-new 2023 XM high-performance hybrid SUV.
BMW said a minimum of six EVs will certainly be developed at the Spartanburg plant by 2030. The majority of these will likely be electrical versions of the existing SUV lines.
BMW setting up plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The battery plant in Woodruff will certainly be run in partnership with Envision AESC. The battery distributor was established as AESC in 2007 by Nissan as well as fellow Japanese business NEC and Tokin, though Nissan sold its regulating risk to China’s Envision Group in 2018.
The plant will certainly have a capacity of approximately 30 gwh and at first produce BMW’s new sixth-generation battery which includes rounded cells. The layout gives packaging advantages over existing prismatic cell designs and also as a result improved thickness as well as efficiency. BMW prices estimate a rise in power density of greater than 20%, enhanced charging rate by approximately 30%, and also boosted variety by as much as 30%.
BMW with its companions likewise plans 4 additional battery plants in Europe and also China. Each of the plants will certainly have a capacity of greater than 20 gwh.
BMW’s statement is the most recent of numerous recent multibillion-dollar investments in U.S. EV manufacturing following the passing of regulation that motivates residential production, especially the Inflation Reduction Act and the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement. With these plans, automakers are able to avoid tariffs or get approved for financial motivations by creating locally.