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BMW’s US Exports Rose to the Number One Spot in the Auto Industry Last Year

BMW announced today that the total value of its automobile exports from the Port of Charleston in 2014 added up to roughly $9.2 billion. This figure places the German company on the number on spot in an ad-hoc top of auto exports by manufacturers in the USA. Basically, they shipped even more cars to the rest of the world than the American companies in 2014.
BMW Spartanburg Plant 1 photo
Photo: BMW
According to the US Department of Commerce, the figure posted for 2014 represents a 13 percent increase compared tot the same value recorded back in 2013.

Over the course of last year, over 260,000 cars were shipped out of the South Carolina Spartanburg plant, which translates to more than 70 percent of the total volume of the factory. The data has been compiled by the Department of Commerce and makes use of the price tag of the cars.

On the number two spot sits Alabama with its Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai plants while Michigan, the cradle of the American auto industry came in third with General Motors, Ford and Chrysler.

“Reaching the number one spot in the field of automakers’ exports in the USA completes a successful year for BMW in South Carolina. With over 364,000 units, 2014 was also a record year in terms of production for this plant,” said Manfred Erlacher, president and CEO of BMW Manufacturing.

At the moment, BMW Manufacturing is assembling over 1,200 cars a day and ships them in over 140 countries around the world. In 2014, the plant celebrated two decades of production and received a record investment of $1 billion to increase its capacity to 450,000 per year.

Since it was opened back in 1994, the Spartanburg plant assembled over 2.6 million cars. Right now, there are 8,000 employees working over there to build the BMW X3, X5, X5 M, X6 M and X4 models. In the future, the plug-in hybrid version of the X5 will also be added to this list as well as the upcoming X7.
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