The $81,250 BMW iX5 Now Has Its Own Battery Plant 15 Miles Away. Here’s Where The Cells Come From
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BMW’s $700 million Plant Woodruff builds the 144-kWh Gen6 pack for the 2027 BMW iX5 60 xDrive with 300-plus workers and 250 robots.
Article Summary
- The iX5 60 xDrive starts at $79,800 before a $1,450 destination charge, with a 144-kWh pack and an estimated 435 miles of range.
- Woodruff assembles packs but not cells, and LG Energy Solution will start supplying US-made Gen6 cells in the late 2020s.
- Woodruff is the fourth of five Gen6 battery plants, after Debrecen, Irlbach-Straßkirchen and Shenyang; San Luis Potosí follows in 2027.
BMW started series production of sixth-generation high-voltage batteries at its new Plant Woodruff in South Carolina today. The first customer is the BMW iX5, the first fully electric BMW assembled in the United States. Finished packs go by truck about 15 miles to Plant Spartanburg, where iX5 production is due to start before the end of the year.
BMW officially opened the plant a little over three years after construction began. Robert Engelhorn, president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing in Spartanburg, presented the opening as BMW keeping its promise to start building EVs in the US by the end of 2026.
What Plant Woodruff Builds And Which BMWs Get Its Batteries
The iX5 (G65) is the only model BMW names today. The US-spec pack holds 144 kWh of usable energy. It uses cylindrical cells 46 mm wide and 120 mm tall, which BMW says hold almost 30 percent more usable energy than the 95-mm cells in the iX3. BMW’s preliminary estimate is 435 miles of range, based on its own testing to EPA procedures, and the pack charges at up to 460 kW. The iX5 60 xDrive starts at $79,800 before a $1,450 destination charge ($81,250 total) and goes on sale in the first quarter of 2027.
Engelhorn said Woodruff will supply the next generation of electric X models from Spartanburg. This is hardly a surprise since we’ve already reported that BMW will build the iX6 (G66) and iX7 (G67) as well.
Where Do The iX5’s Battery Cells Come From?
Woodruff assembles packs but doesn’t make cells. BMW buys them from cell makers that build them to its specifications, checks every delivery at the plant, and keeps its cell engineering at its competence centers in Bavaria. When BMW announced the project in 2022, its cell partner was AESC, which was building a factory in Florence, South Carolina, about two hours away. AESC paused construction there in June 2025, citing policy and market uncertainty. AESC will continue to supply cells to BMW as a bridge. Deliveries from LG Energy Solution’s existing American plant in Arizona will start in the late 2020s.
How A Gen6 Pack Comes Together In Woodruff
Woodruff builds the packs in BMW’s cell-to-pack design, so the cells go straight into the pack with no modules in between. After a voltage check, the cells are grouped into clusters and connected to coolers. The clusters are then laser-cleaned and welded, and every weld seam is checked inline. Next, foam fills the pack and hardens around the components, binding them into one mechanical unit. The housing is sealed and riveted, and the Energy Master control unit goes in last. Every pack gets a full end-of-line inspection before it’s loaded for Spartanburg.
More than 300 people work at the plant alongside about 250 robots. BMW planned the lines with digital twins, trained all production staff in a VR replica of the plant, and runs in-house AI agents on the production data, aiming for zero-defect output.
Three Years From Former Peach Farm To Series Production
BMW broke ground on the former peach farm in June 2023 and started construction that September. Equipment installation began in September 2024 while the building was still going up, and the first pre-series packs came off the line in summer 2025. Woodruff was part of a $1.7 billion package BMW announced in 2022: $1 billion to prepare Spartanburg for EVs and $700 million for the battery plant, which covers more than one million square feet.
Woodruff is the fourth Gen6 battery plant to start series production. Debrecen, Hungary, went first in October 2025, followed by Irlbach-Straßkirchen, Germany, and Shenyang, China, in October 2026. San Luis Potosí, Mexico, completes the five-plant network in 2027. BMW says having Gen6 assembly in Europe, Asia and North America is what lets it build Neue Klasse EVs on three continents.
BMW says Woodruff uses no fossil fuels in normal operation, and its industrial trucks run on hydrogen. The Gen6 cells for the iX5 contain a high share of recycled cobalt, lithium and nickel, and BMW puts their CO2e emissions per watt-hour about 28 percent below the Gen5 cell in the iX.
BMW still won’t say how many packs Woodruff can build in a year. With at least five more electric models due at Spartanburg by 2030, that’s the number to watch.
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