Inside BMW's Plan To Produce The iX5’s Gigantic Battery Pack In The U.S.

While several automakers step back from EVs, BMW is staying on course with new models and local battery production.

BMW Plant Woodruff Battery Production

Photo by: BMW

Suvrat Kothari

By: Suvrat Kothari

Jul 27, at 10:53am ET

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Despite a rocky year for EV sales in the U.S., BMW is taking a massive step forward by bringing battery production stateside. The automaker will start mass production of the new iX5's high-voltage battery pack right here in the U.S. starting in December, at its newly opened Plant Woodruff in South Carolina, BMW said Monday.

Rather than relying on pre-assembled or imported packs from suppliers, BMW is bringing battery production in-house, a multi-billion-dollar effort that only a handful of automakers in the U.S. have attempted. It's more capital intensive upfront, but it's a long-term strategic bet that could help BMW build out a local supply chain, insulate itself from geopolitical shocks, and eventually bring costs down. Since the iX5 is built at the nearby Plant Spartanburg, BMW also stands to save on logistics and transportation costs by keeping battery and vehicle production close together.

Gallery: BMW Plant Woodruff Battery Production

BMW Plant Woodruff Battery Production

Source: BMW

“With Plant Woodruff, we are further expanding our footprint in South Carolina and strengthening the close integration of battery and vehicle production,” Robert Engelhorn, the president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing said in a statement. “This creates the ideal foundation for the next generation of fully electric BMW X models assembled at Plant Spartanburg.”

BMW said roughly 300 human workers and 250 robots will assemble the high-voltage packs, leaning on tools like virtual reality and AI to catch errors along the way. Japanese battery maker Automotive Energy Supply Corp. (AESC), now majority owned by China's Envision Group, will supply the cylindrical cells. AESC had originally planned to produce those cells at a site in South Carolina, but that project got paused last year amid a wave of battery project cancellations nationwide after the Trump administration pulled back EV incentives.

BMW Plant Woodruff Battery Production

BMW Plant Woodruff in South Carolina.

Photo by: BMW

AESC will still supply BMW's Gen6 battery cells, just from an undisclosed location instead. The iX5's cylindrical cells stand 120 millimeters tall and pack 30% more usable energy than the 95 mm cells found in the iX3. The battery pack itself is among the largest we've seen on an electric SUV, measuring 144 kilowatt-hours (usable) in the U.S. and 141 kWh in Europe. That capacity translates to a BMW-estimated 435 miles of range. Despite the pack's size, it can charge from 10-80% in just 22 minutes thanks to a peak charging rate of 460 kilowatts.

How The Pack Is Actually Assembled

BMW engineers start by checking each cell’s voltage when it arrives from its supplier. From there, workers cluster the cells together and hook them up to cooling components, then weld everything together with lasers. Once that's done, the whole pack gets filled with a foam that hardens around the cells, locking everything into one solid block for protection.

BMW Plant Woodruff Battery Production

Photo by: BMW

The pack housing is then sealed, and the Energy Master (basically the battery's brain) gets bolted on. The Energy Master also requires its own glue and seal so that it's properly locked in place and fully insulated from the outside. Every pack then goes through a final check before making the short 15-mile trip from Woodruff to the Spartanburg plant, where it will get dropped into the iX5.

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Woodruff isn't the only place BMW is assembling battery packs. The automaker is also making them in Debrecen, Hungary; Lower Bavaria, Germany; Shenyang, China; and San Luis Potosi, Mexico. BMW calls this a “local for local” approach, assembling packs close to where the EVs themselves are built, which could give the automaker supply chain and logistical advantages for decades to come.

Contact the author: suvrat.kothari@insideevs.com