Inside The South Carolina Plant Where The New BMW X5 Is Born

Every new BMW X5 begins life as flat sheet metal in South Carolina. BMW announced plans for its first American factory in Spartanburg back in 1992, and the lines started running in 1994 with cars such as the E36 3 Series. Three decades on, the plant has become the brand’s global home of X, building the X3, X5, X6, X7 and XM. It is also the largest automotive exporter in the United States by value.

The journey starts in the stamping shop. Automated Schuler servo presses drive massive dies into flat blanks, forming them into bonnets, side frames and the rest of the outer skin. Robots shuttle each panel between stations at speed while scanners and human specialists hunt for defects and check dimensional accuracy. Anything out of tolerance goes no further.

Next comes the body shop, and this is where the scale registers. More than 2,000 robots clamp, weld and assemble the structure. Most of the joining is done by resistance spot welding, which fuses metal without the shower of sparks people tend to picture, though arc welding stations elsewhere provide the fireworks. The finished body-in-white is then measured by automated optical systems before it heads for paint.

Rust protection begins with an electrocoat dipping process, and the body is rotated as it goes so the coating reaches every last cavity. Robots follow up with sealant, primer and colour, then the shell passes through a brightly lit inspection tunnel where technicians check it by eye and by hand. Final assembly is where it all comes together at the marriage station, the point at which the painted body meets its powertrain. Interior, doors, glass, wheels, fluids and badges follow, and a BMW test driver signs the car off before it leaves.

The Neue Klasse era has now reached Spartanburg through the new X5, internally the G65, which carries the design language and technology across. American buyers get the 40 xDrive first, using a 3.0-litre turbocharged straight-six with 48-volt mild hybrid assistance for 394 horsepower. A 50e xDrive plug-in hybrid and the fully electric iX5 60 xDrive follow by 2027, the latter with 570 horsepower and an estimated 435 miles of range on preliminary BMW testing using EPA procedures. Audi’s Q7 and the Mercedes-Benz GLE have been warned.