BMW plans $900 million expansion with 300 more jobs

BMW Group said it will add 300 jobs this year as part of a $900 million expansion at its plant near Greer to build another model in its X series, the X4.

BMW said the expansion would allow it to make 350,000 vehicles a year at the plant, which already makes the X3, X5 and X6 models. That’s a 27 percent increase over the 276,065 vehicles produced last year.

Company officials said total employment at the BMW complex along Interstate 85 -- including contract workers and vendor employees -- would reach 8,000 in 2014 from about 7,000 now.
That doesn’t include additional off-site hiring by the plant’s numerous Upstate suppliers, which are bound to boost employment as a result of the expansion, said Jim Morton, a Greenville resident who used to be vice chairman of Nissan North America.

“It’s going to impact the Upstate and the whole state, the first- and second-tier suppliers, the port and everything else,” Morton said.

The plant has 40 suppliers in South Carolina and 170 in North America, said BMW spokesman Steve Wilson.

Doug Woodward, an economist at the University of South Carolina who has studied BMW’s operations in the state, said he figures the expansion will create an additional three to four indirect and induced jobs for every direct job created at the plant.

“It’ll definitely filter through the supplier base and create a significant number of new jobs,” Woodward said.

Manfred Kasprzok, an executive with Draxlmaier Group, which makes parts for the X3 in Duncan, said the 27 percent production boost over the next three or four years should translate into an equivalent increase in production employment at Upstate suppliers.

Kasprzok said he doesn’t expect more suppliers to build factories in the area, but existing suppliers will have more work. He said Draxlmaier doesn’t know if it will get any of the X4 work because BMW hasn’t announced the suppliers that will build parts for the new model.

Frank-Peter Arndt, a member of BMW’s management board, said the company is responding to rising global demand for its X models. He joined Gov. Nikki Haley for a news conference to announce the expansion and celebrate the production of two million cars at the local plant since its launch in 1994.

Toyota's NS4 concept projects the hybrid car three years hence

Toyota's NS4 advanced plug-in hybrid concept that was unveiled this week at the 2012 North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit is the brainchild of Toyota engineers who were given the task of designing a new mid-size concept for potential launch in markets worldwide by 2015. While the NS4 concept is a dedicated plug-in toyota electric vehicle (PHEV), Toyota says it isn't part of its Prius family, with a next-generation Hybrid Synergy Drive plug-in system that is not only smaller and lighter, but is also more fuel efficient, boasts better acceleration and a longer all-electric range than the current system.

Claiming that connected vehicles are the third fastest growing technological device behind smartphones and tablets, Toyota has developed the NS4 concept with a heavy focus on connectivity. Its Human-Machine Interface (HMI) is built around a multi-touch screen that takes its lead in the look and usability departments from a smartphone and acts as a hub for displaying information and controlling the car's multimedia, air conditioning, battery-charge and navigation functions. Toyota says the HMI system is also able to learn driver preferences and habits and anticipate driver responses in certain situations.The NS4 concept also sees the introduction of a number of new safety features. A next-generation Pre-Collision System (PCS) is designed to predict collisions before they occur and help avoid them. It uses millimeter-wave radar and front-mounted stereo cameras to detect and react to lane departure, pedestrians and other vehicles, with near-infrared beams to enhance performance at night. When the system detects an imminent collision, the brake assist system is placed in standby mode and the driver is warned by a buzzer and warning light. If the system determines that the collision is unavoidable, it will apply the brakes and automatically tighten the front seatbelts.

For those times when a pedestrian collision can't be avoided, the car features a pop-up hood structure that automatically raises the rear of the hood within certain speed ranges to increase the space underneath and reduce the chance of the pedestrian sustaining head injuries. Toyota says it has tested this system using both conventional crash-test dummies and virtual models.