BMW Photo
The production of 400,904 X-models at Greer's BMW Manufacturing facility in 2015 makes it the brand’s largest annual production facility in the world, company officials announced Monday.
Greer recorded BMW’s largest annual production in 2015 when 400,904 X-models rolled off the line.
The plant on Hwy. 101 produced a 15 percent increase over the production volume for 2014 (349,949). Seventy percent (281,256) of the total volume were exported to over 140 countries last year.
BMW strategically made the announcement on the first day of the Detroit Auto Show.
“2015 was another very successful year for plant Spartanburg,” Manfred Erlacher, President and CEO, BMW Manufacturing Co., said in a statement. “We have an outstanding team of dedicated associates that are highly committed to delivering premium quality vehicles for our customers to enjoy.”
BMW, as Erlacher noted, takes great pains to ignore Greer as its physical address, previously designating the plant in Spartanburg County and now only as Spartanburg. “Greer” has been removed from the signage at the company's entrance on Hwy. 101 without any city address. Additionally BMW uses only a post office box outside of Greer as its lone address in all correspondence. Hwy. 101 Greer, S.C. has been removed.
“We have to recognize and commend folks at BMW that this is a real tribute to their business model, BMW and its employees,” Greer Mayor Rick Danner said.
“This validates what our community says and to the world, we have a quality economy that is world class,” Danner said.
The 2015 production figures for X-models show:
X3: 142,613
X4: 55,027
X5: 158,766
X6: 44,498
The plant reported 8,000 jobs, although it does not differentiate between the thousands of contract workers. Forty of the 270 North American suppliers are located in South Carolina.
Construction projects are ongoing for the three-year, $1 billion expansion that includes the launch of the X7 and mass production of at least 450,000 X-models annually. They include:
• A new state-of-the-art, 527,000 square foot body shop
• 2 new indoor test tracks
• 200,0000 square foot expansion to X5/X6 assembly hall
• Warehouse expansion (105,000 square feet)
BMW of North America already reported record sales for the third year in a row with 404,537 vehicles (BMW and MINI combined) sold in 2015. The BMW vehicle models produced in Greer contributed significantly to the company’s U.S. sales success, accounting for nearly one-third of all BMW brand U.S. sales.
The X5 set a new sales record with 54,997 units sold, nearly 17 percent more than 2014.
BMW began manufacturing vehicles in Greer in 1994 and has produced over 3.3 million units in the past two decades. More than 1,400 vehicles are produced each day. BMW Group stated it has invested over $7 billion in the Greer plant.