BMW is gearing up for a ribbon cutting this Friday at a new plant near Greenville, marking a milestone roughly three years in the making since the automaker broke ground on the project. The event caps years of construction work tied to BMW's push into electric vehicle production in Upstate South Carolina.
The preview of the grand opening was reported by WAFB, which noted that BMW broke ground on the new plant about three years before this week's ribbon cutting. That timeline tracks with BMW Group's own account of its Plant Woodruff battery facility, where the company has said the official groundbreaking took place in June 2023, according to a release from BMW Group.
Plant Woodruff has been central to BMW's electrification plans in the region. The company has said the facility is expected to begin series production of high-voltage batteries this December, per the same BMW Group release. The plant sits roughly 15 miles from BMW's vehicle assembly plant in nearby Greer, according to the SC Daily Gazette.
Woodruff is an assembly site, not a battery-cell factory: BMW says cylindrical cells will be integrated directly into high-voltage packs using a “cell-to-pack” design. The first series-production batteries are slated for the all-electric BMW iX5, whose vehicles will be assembled at Plant Spartanburg. The arrangement links battery-pack assembly in Woodruff with vehicle manufacturing in the Upstate, as BMW’s description of the production process makes clear.
A Former Peach Farm Transformed
The site itself has a distinctive backstory. BMW described the facility as a 1 million-square-foot plant built on a 315-acre former peach farm along S.C. Highway 101, with operations originally expected to begin by 2026, The Greenville News reported in June 2023.
Construction timelines, however, have not been entirely consistent across sources. BMW Group has stated that construction of the new plant began in September 2023, while Greenville.com reported that workers started construction immediately after a beam-signing ceremony on October 5 of that year, installing the first beam before beginning the build. The company separately said at the time that Plant Woodruff was expected to be completed in 2026.
Big Investment, Hundreds of New Jobs
Money and workforce numbers tied to the project are substantial. BMW has said its combined investment in the existing Greer factory and the new Woodruff battery plant totals $1.7 billion, according to the SC Daily Gazette. South Carolina, for its part, offered the automaker a $52 million grant to purchase the Woodruff land and cover offsite environmental improvements, the outlet reported.
BMW’s established South Carolina footprint is already a major part of the state economy, though those figures should not be read as Woodruff’s impact alone. A University of South Carolina study released this week estimated that Plant Spartanburg generates $36 billion in annual statewide economic activity; the economist behind it said every 10 jobs at the plant correspond to 32 elsewhere in South Carolina. The study also tied about 50,000 statewide jobs to the plant, as WYFF reported on the new estimate.
Hiring has been underway well ahead of the plant's debut. A July 2026 report from the Gazette said BMW had already hired and begun training more than 300 people at the battery assembly plant. BMW production vice president Rich Everly told the outlet that AESC is expected to ship battery cells made at its China facilities to the Woodruff plant once it is running.
Woodruff is also part of BMW’s wider rollout of sixth-generation battery production. The company said it had opened facilities in Irlbach-Straßkirchen, Germany, and Shenyang, China, in October, with a plant in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, expected to follow in 2027. BMW’s November statement placed Woodruff’s series-production start before the end of 2026, putting the Upstate site among several facilities intended to supply the automaker’s regional vehicle plants, as the company outlined in its quarterly update.
The local supply chain has faced uncertainty elsewhere in the state. AESC, which planned a separate Florence County factory to make battery cells for BMW, said in June 2025 that it was pausing construction because of policy and market uncertainty. That is distinct from Woodruff’s battery-pack assembly operation: the opening advances local pack production, but does not by itself mean the cells are being manufactured in South Carolina, as South Carolina Public Radio reported on AESC’s pause.
With the ribbon cutting set for Friday, the plant's opening represents the latest step in a buildout that began with a groundbreaking ceremony three years ago and has steadily moved through construction, hiring, and training phases since. BMW has indicated that series production of high-voltage batteries is slated to begin at the facility next month.
