BMW will invest $1.7 billion to make EVs in the United States
Enlarge / BMW's factory in South Carolina builds its X models-SUVs and crossovers-and now it's going to build electric ones. (credit: BMW)
Domestic lithium-ion battery manufacturing has received quite a shot in the arm in 2022. In May, the Department of Energy announced it would spend $3 billion to increase battery-making here in the US. But perhaps more consequentially, in August the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act now ties an electric vehicle's tax credit to local battery production. As a result, automakers have been scrambling to build new battery factories in North America.
Now BMW is the latest OEM to join the list. On Wednesday, BMW Chairman Oliver Zipse announced that the company, which wants to have sold 2 million EVs by the end of 2025, is going to invest $1.7 billion in US EV manufacturing. $1 billion of that will be used to build out EV production lines at BMW's factory in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The remaining $700 million will go toward a new battery assembly plant in Woodruff, South Carolina.
And BMW also announced a partnership with Envision AESC, which is going to build a lithium-ion cell-manufacturing plant with an annual capacity of 30 GWh/year, also in South Carolina. BMW says that this plant will produce newly developed round cells, specifically designed for BMW's sixth-generation EVs. (The recently introduced iX and i4 are its fifth-gen EVs.)