AI
BMW GROUP’ S PLANT SPARTANBURG due to surrounding pedestrians, and a Waymo vehicle that drove straight past a police officer making an arrest, a situation any human driver would have instinctively paused for.
“ At the same time, they are absolutely amazing,” Pascal confesses.“ There’ s close to 3,000 autonomous vehicles now in San Francisco and they are doing the job. Sometimes we get shocked by some of their reactions but 99 % of the time, they are doing the right thing – and we would rather they are overly cautious about people and certain scenarios than not.”
Sprawling more than 10 million square feet in South Carolina, BMW Group Plant Spartanburg is the automaker’ s largest manufacturing facility worldwide. Employing more than 11,000 associates, the factory assembles more than 1,500 BMW X Series models daily, exporting around half of its annual output to nearly 120 global markets.
Beyond its scale, Spartanburg serves as the operational testing ground for BMW’ s physical AI and advanced automation initiatives. By integrating human-in-the-loop robotics, AI-driven quality checks and digital twins alongside humanoid deployments like Figure 02 and Figure 03, Spartanburg bridges digital intelligence with real-world, highvolume automotive production.