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.