BMW Group officially opened Plant Woodruff in Woodruff, South Carolina, on Nov. 13, 2026, and started series production of sixth-generation high-voltage batteries for the BMW iX5, the company’s first fully electric model to be assembled in the United States.
The announcement matters for a precise reason. South Carolina is now doing two jobs that often get blurred together: battery pack assembly in Woodruff, and vehicle assembly about 15 miles away at Plant Spartanburg. BMW is not claiming that the cells inside those packs are made at Woodruff, and the company says they are not.
What opened, and what it will feed
In its official statement, BMW said the Woodruff plant will supply Gen6 high-voltage batteries for the new iX5 and later electric vehicles built at Plant Spartanburg. Robert Engelhorn, president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing Co., put the timing on the record: “We said we would begin assembling fully electric BMW vehicles in the US by the end of 2026 – and we are delivering on that commitment.”
Raymond Wittmann, the BMW AG board member responsible for production, said the company plans to assemble at least six fully electric models at Plant Spartanburg by 2030. “The start of series production of Gen6 high-voltage batteries in Woodruff … lays the foundation for the first-ever series production of fully electric BMW vehicles at Plant Spartanburg and on the American continent,” he said.
The Anderson Independent-Mail, in a Nov. 13 report by Ruth Cronin also published by the Greenville News, described the Woodruff site as a $700 million, one-million-square-foot plant first announced in October 2022. BMW’s own release traces a shorter construction clock: groundbreaking in June 2023, construction starting that September, equipment installation a year later, and the first test and pre-series batteries in summer 2025.
Assembly, not cell manufacturing
BMW’s own questions-and-answers page is blunt. “Will battery cells also be produced in Woodruff? No. In Woodruff, supplied battery cells are assembled into Gen6 high-voltage batteries.” The company says it buys the cells from “leading cell manufacturers,” inspects them on arrival, clusters them with cooling components, welds the contact system, foams the pack for stability, seals the housing and installs the Energy Master control unit. Every pack gets an end-of-line inspection, then a short truck trip to Spartanburg.
That is a real USA manufacturing step, and it is also a qualified one. A finished iX5 assembled in Spartanburg with a pack assembled in Woodruff is not automatically a “Made in USA” vehicle under the Federal Trade Commission’s “all or virtually all” standard. The cells, and many other parts, still come from a global supply chain. BMW’s language is about assembling the vehicle and the pack in South Carolina, and that is the claim the facts support.
The company says more than 300 employees and about 250 robots work at Plant Woodruff. It also says the plant uses no fossil fuels in normal operations and that industrial trucks on the site run on hydrogen. The Independent-Mail reported that 300 people are already working there and that BMW would not discuss future hiring.
How this fits BMW’s network
Woodruff is the fourth Gen6 battery assembly plant to enter series production, after Debrecen, Hungary (October 2025), and Irlbach-Straßkirchen, Germany, and Shenyang, China (both October 2026). A fifth plant, in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is scheduled to start in 2027. Wittmann said the Woodruff opening means Gen6 pack assembly is now in place in Europe, Asia and North America.
Plant Spartanburg has been BMW’s USA production base since 1994. The Independent-Mail, citing BMW, said the plant now employs more than 11,000 people and builds about 1,500 vehicles a day. A University of South Carolina study released around a Nov. 10 stakeholder event put Plant Spartanburg’s 2026 economic output in the state at $36.1 billion, the newspaper reported.
“BMW continues to deliver on its commitments to South Carolina,” Gov. Henry McMaster said at the opening. “Just a few years ago, I stood on this site with BMW leadership to break ground on this facility. Today, we are seeing that investment come to life.” The Independent-Mail noted that the property, along SC-101, was once the S.J. Workman Peach Farm.
FAQ
Are the batteries made in the USA?
The packs are assembled in Woodruff. BMW says the plant does not make battery cells. It inspects cells purchased from cell manufacturers and builds them into Gen6 packs, which then travel about 15 miles to Plant Spartanburg.
Where is the iX5 assembled?
At Plant Spartanburg in South Carolina. BMW says the iX5 is the first fully electric BMW assembled in the United States, with series production scheduled by the end of 2026.
Source & credit
Sources: BMW Group: “BMW Group opens high-voltage battery assembly plant in Woodruff and marks the start of fully electric vehicle production in the US”, Nov. 13, 2026; Ruth Cronin, Anderson Independent-Mail / Greenville News: “BMW opens first North America high-voltage battery plant in Upstate”, Nov. 13, 2026.