NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C. – Bosch yesterday celebrated the beginning of production at its EV motor factory on its campus in North Charleston, S.C.
The company converted the 200,000-square-foot building which formerly produced diesel-engine components to produce electric motors initially for the Rivian R1T pickup truck. In addition, the company has already begun building a 75,000-square-foot expansion of this plant to handle the increasing demand for such motors.
Bosch earlier this month produced the first motors as it slowly ramped up manufacturing. Yesterday’s program brought together company executives and local government and community leaders to fete Bosch’s investment in electromobility and South Carolina.
“We have grown our electrification business globally and here in the North American region,” said Mike Mansuetti, president of Bosch in North America. “We’ve invested more than $6 billion dollars in electromobility development and in 2021 our global orders for electromobility surpassed $10 billion dollars for the first time. Local production helps to advance our customers’ regional electrification strategies, and further supports the market demand for electrification.
The South Carolina plant is the company’s second EV-motor manufacturing facility, following almost two years after the opening of one in Heinsberg, Germany.
The expansion, a $260-million investment that will bring an additional 350 workers to Bosch’s 118-acre, four-building campus (where they also produce ESP and IPB braking components and fuel injectors in other buildings) by 2025.
The German firm also operates manufacturing operations in Anderson, S.C. where they produce fuel-cell stacks for Nikola trucks.
The Bosch North Charleston facility, which opened in 1974, is the largest manufacturing site in the United States for Bosch from an employment perspective with around 1,500 associates.
The North Charleston plant stands out with a long history of process competency as well as its knowledge in the area of automation and robotics. Production at the site features highly-automated processes, and the site utilizes artificial intelligence and Industry 4.0 methods to gain more efficiency.
