Bernhard Kuhnt, President and CEO BMW of North America LLC
Good morning, welcome to BMW! Thank you all for joining us this early today. Hopefully you enjoyed that opening video – a beautiful ride across this great and simply beautiful country. From cowboys to high school football, mountains to deserts… an all-American adventure featuring our all-new BMW X5. Capable, powerful and confident. No need to take any detours.
That’s why we traced a straight line from our factory in Spartanburg to the show here in L.A. Overcoming many obstacles and loving every minute of it. Because BMWs are built for people who love driving as much as we do.
This is the fourth generation of our X5. All have been made right here in the U.S. at Plant Spartanburg. It is also the tenth X model built at the plant since it opened in 1994. In total, we have produced more than 4.4 million vehicles. And 70 percent of what we build in Spartanburg is exported all over the world.Making BMW the highest value exporter of any American-made vehicles.
Of course, our commitment to the U.S. goes far beyond building and selling cars here. We are proud to support American jobs. Nationwide, we employ more than 70,000 people together with our suppliers and dealers.
We are driving innovation in this country. From our Designworks studio located just a few miles north of here to our R&D facilities in Mountain View and our tech office in Chicago. BWW Group teams across the U.S. are developing new designs and technologies for the company worldwide. In fact, the BMW Connected app is built in-house at our Chicago office. This app puts your BMW in your pocket so you can manage your car right from your smartphone.
And, just next week we’re introducing another great feature to make life easier: BMW drivers will be able to pay parking meters right from their car in over 300 U.S. cities. This adds to the growing list of connected features we already have.
The U.S. plays a critical role in the BMW Group network. Which brings us to why we are all here today.
I hope you remember last year at this very same spot, it all looked different. An empty stand. We then filled it with various new cars, concepts and promises focused on luxury, performance and electrification. So much has happened since then. We’ve experienced – and thanks to all our customers – 12 months of growth for BMW in the U.S.
We have rolled out new models like the X3, X4, and the stunning M5. In fact, we at BMW are in the middle of the largest product offensive in our company’s long history. With the youngest product portfolio we’ve ever seen. Today, we are delivering on the promises we made last year and bringing a few more.
Now’s let talk a bit more about this X5. When we introduced the X5 almost 20 years ago, it launched not only our X models, but also the entire Sport Activity segment. Here in the US, the BMW X5 has been one of our best-sellers every year since 2001. As we call the X5 internally: The boss is back.
Of course, our X vehicles aren’t just important to the U.S. They have a huge impact on a global scale.
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SOURCE: BMW Group
