BMW—Committed to South Carolina

August 7, 2012 — Max Metcalf, BMW’s Manager for Government and Community Relations, was our speaker.  He started out his presentation stating that the Greenville, SC production plant will soon be launching a new X5 series SUV and said it currently is a Top Secret Project.  Mr. Metcalf would not announce the exact date or any design details, but stated that BMW is committed to South Carolina’s future and was honored to speak to our club.

Mr. Metcalf presented a history of the development of the upstate plant from its inception in the late 1990’s to present.  He said BMW researched the US market and had several reasons for expanding production to the US.  He also explained the main reasons BMW chose South Carolina as its only US production site.



· Established infrastructure

· Access to 3 airports

· Global access with Charleston Port

· Interstate system able to get parts to facility

· Qualified manufacturing workforce…pride in building product

· Centralized location for logistics

· Pro-business attitude in SC

· Technical education system with high willingness to teach methods used in Germany

Currently, the plant employs 7,200 employees on site.  In 2013, they are opening a new assembly line and expect the total number of employees to increase to nearly 8,000.  Mr. Metcalf gave several important statistics regarding BMW’s impact on the SC economy. 

In January 2012, the 2 millionth SC-made BMW rolled off the assembly line.  Currently nearly 70% of BMWs made in Greenville are exported to 130 markets.  The plant is now 4 million square feet and approximately ½ million square feet of office space. 

With the new assembly line in 2013, they plan to invest an additional $900 million into their facility in the next 2 years.  2011 was a record year for the X3 with 276,065 units built.  Presently, 1,100 cars are made a day while working 6 days a week. Charleston plays an important part in BMWs success in South Carolina.  Anywhere from 600-800 cars are shipped out of the Port of Charleston each day.  Each car produced is already paid for by the consumer or the dealership.  192,000 vehicles are exported from SC each year.

Their plant is a state-of-the-art facility with three main areas of production including a Body shop, Paint shop, and Assembly shop.  They are committed to sustainability in all aspects of production, employing aspects such as hydrogen fuel cells, recycling methane gas from a local land fill which cuts 50% of energy usage, solar power arrays, and a new paint process that uses water based propellants dropping the emissions output.  While they are proud of the efforts thus far, they continue to strive toward a zero landfill waste strategy for all aspects of the plant.

BMW supports South Carolina in many ways and helps provide funds for cultural and artistic efforts.  Their Zentrum museum is often made available to non-profit organizations in Greenville for special events.  Over the years they have invested over $1 million toward Spoleto and Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston.
Reported by Steve Coe, Keyway Committee