BMW opens Woodruff battery plant as new X5 enters production

On the same day that it unveiled the fifth generation of the X5, BMW officially opened its Woodruff plant in South Carolina, United States, just 30 km from the Spartanburg complex. This is BMW’s largest industrial facility anywhere in the world and the site where the X5 is built.

Spartanburg has therefore become the first plant in BMW’s global production network able to manufacture a model with five different powertrain types on the same assembly line: petrol, diesel, plug-in hybrid, fully electric and, later, hydrogen.

The all-electric version, called the iX5, will receive its batteries from BMW’s new Woodruff facility. By 2030, the German marque expects to assemble batteries there for at least six new electric models, all of them manufactured in the United States.

BMW Woodruff factory and Cell-to-Pack battery production

Developed around the principles of BMW iFactory, the new Woodruff plant was designed to minimise the complexity of the manufacturing process. It consequently adopts the “Cell-to-Pack” principle, which enables cells to be fitted directly into the vehicle structure, eliminating the former cell-packaging and module processes.

Innovation is taking a different route at Spartanburg, 30 kilometres away. There, BMW is deploying humanoid robots in real production scenarios, an initiative the company describes as a first across its entire industrial network.

More advanced batteries

BMW’s sixth-generation batteries represent a complete change from those used previously: the cell format moves from prismatic to cylindrical, voltage rises from 400 V to 800 V, and energy density increases by around 20%.

In addition, the cooling system no longer relies on plates positioned beneath the cells, instead using direct contact. The chemistry remains based on NMC (Nickel, Manganese and Cobalt), although it now contains more nickel and less cobalt, while the manufacturing process cuts CO₂ emissions by 28% per watt-hour.

For the new BMW X5, the iX5 60 xDrive version will feature the largest battery ever installed in an electric car from a European manufacturer, with a capacity of 144 kWh, of which 141 kWh is usable.

BMW’s investment in the United States

BMW has invested heavily in the United States for more than half a century, and this additional investment in Spartanburg and Woodruff has involved an injection of $1.7 billion (around €1.42 billion at the current exchange rate) in the country - roughly $1 billion in Spartanburg and $700 thousand in Woodruff.

The German group currently supports 120,000 jobs in the country, including the approximately 300 created at Woodruff, and contributes $43 billion (around €37.7 billion) to the US economy each year.

Founded more than three decades ago, the Spartanburg plant is the global home of BMW X models. Since 1994, more than 7.3 million BMW vehicles have been assembled in South Carolina for customers around the world. In 2025, production reached 412,799 units, marking the seventh occasion on which the factory had exceeded 400,000 vehicles.

Around half of the plant’s current output is exported to almost 120 countries, helping make BMW the United States’ largest car exporter by value. To date, nearly three million BMW vehicles have been exported from the country, worth more than $113 billion (around €99.2 billion) in total.