Autoblog and Yahoo may earn commission from links in this article.Earlier this month, I travelled to South Carolina to see the all-new 2027 BMW X5 be unveiled, but the SUV itself wasn't what stuck with me most. The X5 isn't exactly a footnote in BMW history: it's perhaps the vehicle that most helped BMW transition successfully into the 21st century. The original X5 gave the brand a new kind of reach in 1999, proving that a tall, practical family vehicle could still carry enough BMW-ness to satisfy people who cared about steering feel, road manners, and the small, smug pleasure of buying something useful without fully surrendering to mundanity.More than 25 years later, the X5 is still built in South Carolina. At BMW's Plant Spartanburg, the X5 is not some peripheral product assembled far from the company's emotional center. It is the spiritual center of the whole American operation, and BMW now officially calls Spartanburg the "Home of X."AdvertisementAdvertisementThe new X5 was the obvious headline of the trip, and the pretense for why I had flown all this way in the first place. But after visiting BMW's iFactory, the Zentrum museum and Plant Woodruff, the more interesting story seemed bigger than one model reveal. It was about what happens when one of the most important luxury SUVs of the last quarter-century has to drag its own legacy into the electric age, without losing the factory, identity and production ecosystem that helped make it successful in the first place.2027 BMW X5 M60e xDriveCole AttishaThe X5 Made South Carolina BMW CountryFor most enthusiasts, BMW is still emotionally tied to Munich, inline-six engines, and compact sport sedans that seem to get better in memory with each passing year. But the modern company is also inseparable from South Carolina. Plant Spartanburg builds the vehicles that turned BMW's SUV lineup into a global powerhouse. Walk around the campus, and the scale of that becomes hard to ignore. There are X models everywhere: finished vehicles, partially assembled bodies, test vehicles, transport trucks, production lines and enough kidney grilles lying around to make you think this might have been some sort of underground automotive black-market organ trafficking operation.Thinking about selling your car? Get an instant cash offer online now. Click here to get started.2027 BMW X5 M60e xDriveCole AttishaAll that context makes the new X5 feel less like just another redesigned luxury SUV and more like the latest chapter in BMW's American manufacturing story. It's one thing to see the new X5 parked outside the Zentrum, wearing its Neue Klasse face and updated lighting signature under a big "Home of X" sign. It's another thing entirely to walk through the bowels of the industrial system that makes vehicles like it possible.BMW Plant WoodruffBMWThe New X5 Was The Headline, But Plant Woodruff Was The Story BeneathOne of the most intriguing stops was perhaps Plant Woodruff, BMW's new high-voltage battery facility, and it's what makes the upcoming fully electric iX5 become viable as a serious production vehicle.AdvertisementAdvertisementBMW says Plant Woodruff will begin series production of high-voltage batteries for the new iX5 starting this December. Those batteries will then travel to Plant Spartanburg, only about 15 miles away, where the fully electric X model will be assembled. That proximity turns the usual abstract talk about localization into something palpable. Workers can stand in one building, look at battery production equipment, and rest assured that those packs aren't being treated as some distant EV supply-chain afterthought. They've been pulled into the same regional orbit as the vehicles themselves.That's the part of this story that feels most consequential. The all-electric iX5 won't be treated like an obscure electric side quest built elsewhere and shipped into BMW's lineup as an afterthought. Its construction is being folded into the same South Carolina manufacturing ecosystem that already builds BMW's most important SUVs, further establishing BMW's intent to produce electric vehicles in America.Shopping for a new car? Click here to get a great deal on your next vehicle. Powered by Carvana, no haggle pricing, 100% online.BMW iFactory South CarolinaCole AttishaBMW's Electric Future Still Looks IndustrialThe inside of a modern factory doesn't look quite as romantic as what Enzo Ferrari's workshop might have looked like back in its heyday. There are no sweeping mountain roads in the background, no exhaust notes bouncing between stone walls, no leather driving gloves, and no heroic engineer gazing at a polished camshaft like it might reveal the meaning of life. Instead, there are production stations, inspection systems, robots, battery modules, digital processes, and workers moving through a manufacturing environment where precision matters more than theatre.Plant Woodruff is built around BMW's sixth-generation battery technology, with cylindrical cells, an 800-volt architecture, and cell-to-pack construction. BMW says the iX5 60 xDrive's battery will have 144 kWh of usable energy in U.S.-market form, making it the largest high-voltage battery fitted to any fully electric BMW model so far. It's the mechanical foundation of BMW's attempt to make an electric X5 feel like a legitimate X5, not merely a battery-powered alternative.BMW Plant Woodruff VR TrainingBMWThe factory side is equally telling. BMW is using AI-supported production processes, digital twins, inline monitoring, and VR training for employees. They say the goal isn't to make the factory seem futuristic for its own sake, but rather to build huge, complex battery packs with enough consistency that nobody buying a luxury electric SUV has to think about the factory at all. That, ironically, is the factory's job: to disappear behind the product. Still, though, I couldn't help but wonder if all that VR training only adds more steps to the onboarding process—no longer do new employees just have to learn the process, but now they must first also become comfortable with experimental augmented reality programs in order to train at all.BMW iFactory South CarolinaCole AttishaThe X5's Next Chapter Starts Before You Drive ItI still want to drive the new X5. Of course I do. BMW can talk about production quality, electric range, battery chemistry, and software-defined manufacturing all it wants, but an X5 still has to work well on the road. It has to feel expensive, confident, useful, and distinctly BMW, and it has to justify its badge the old-fashioned way: by exciting people behind the wheel.AdvertisementAdvertisementBMW isn't abandoning combustion, either. The new X5 family includes gas, diesel, plug-in hybrid, fully electric, and even hydrogen powertrains globally. That feels very much like the BMW we know and love: less about ideological purity, and instead more engineering optionality. But the electric iX5 seems to carry the most symbolic weight, because it asks whether BMW can preserve its most important SUV lineage into a new era without treating electrification as a separate universe. South Carolina is where that question finds its answers.Autoblog aims to feature only the best products and services. If you buy something via one of our links, we may earn a commission.This story was originally published by Autoblog on Jul 27, 2026, where it first appeared in the Features section. Add Autoblog as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
