As part of a ceremony to celebrate production of its 2,000,000th vehicle in the United States, BMW has announced that it will be investing nearly $900 million at its facility in Spartanburg, South Carolina this year. The money will be used to ready this state-of-the-art plant to build the new BMW X4 crossover model and will add 300 new jobs.
Frank-Peter Arndt, the BMW Group Board Member responsible for production noted: "With this investment, we will be able to produce 350,000 units here in the mid-term. This is one reaction to the rising global demand for our BMW X Models." As for the record-setting 2 millionth vehicle to roll off the line at Spartanburg, it was a Vermillion Red Metallic BMW X3 xDrive35i.
The automaker’s only U.S. facility, Spartanburg will employ nearly 7,500 workers by the time the X4 program goes fully active in 2014. To date BMW has invested nearly $6 billion in its South Carolina plant. Since 1994, Spartanburg has turned out six different BMW models, including the 318i, Z3, Z4, X3, X5 and X6. Of the 276,065 vehicles built there in 2011, 70 percent were exported to over 130 markets around the world, an achievement that makes BMW the largest automotive exporter to non-NAFTA countries.
