BMW cars built in Spartanburg are loaded for export at Charleston port in South Carolina.
BMW's U.S. auto plant — its largest in the world — cranked out a record 433,810 vehicles last year, despite global supply chain shortages and lingering COVID worries.
The Spartanburg, S.C., factory assembled 20 percent more vehicles in 2021 than in 2020.
The volume topped its previous record, set in 2019, by 22,190. The plant has an annual capacity of 450,000 vehicles.
BMW’s crossover assembly plant in Spartanburg, S.C., set a production record last year. Vehicles produced:
2021: 433,810
2020: 361,365
2019: 411,620
2018: 356,749
2017: 371,316
Source: BMW
South Carolina's output also helped propel BMW to the top of the U.S. luxury sales leader board for a third straight year in 2021. Spartanburg supplied 53.4 percent of the brand's 336,644 retail deliveries in the U.S. last year.
The factory serves the U.S. market's sweet spot, assembling five BMW X-series utility models. Luxury crossover and SUV sales in the U.S. rose 11 percent to 1.41 million last year from 1.27 million in 2020, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center.
The X5 was Spartanburg's volume leader last year, accounting for 170,680 units, including the M performance variant. The compact X3 came in second, accounting for 118,249, including M models.
The U.S. plant's key role in BMW's global production network — it exports more than two-thirds of its vehicles to about 125 markets — likely shielded its assembly lines from interruption due to the global semiconductor shortage.
BMW also did a better job of planning its chip supply, ensuring it could build vehicles to meet demand.
"We had the right quantities [of semiconductors] committed early on for 2021," BMW's global sales chief Pieter Nota told Automotive News this month. "We have entered into a direct agreement with chipmakers to secure several million semiconductors per year."
The plant built a record 70,000 electrified vehicles last year. Plug-in hybrid output at the plant rose 48 percent from 2020.
This year will bring a new high-performance M model to the mix, with production of the BMW XM, a coupelike, plug-in hybrid SUV, that will begin in late 2022.
"Electric mobility is becoming a growth driver and success factor for the company," BMW Manufacturing CEO Robert Engelhorn said in a statement. "Our plant is fully on board to support BMW Group's electrification strategy."
