ZF will invest $500 million in its Gray Court facility in Laurens County to make it the company’s first North American flex-manufacturing facility, the company announced Feb. 6.
The company is a global manufacturer and supplier of transportation technologies, and the new investment is expected to create 400 jobs and pave the way for production of the firm’s 8HP Gen4 PHEV transmissions, which are already in use in BMW 7 Series and X5 models.
The PHEV transmissions are currently produced in Germany with the first South Carolina units produced in Gray Court expected in 2025, the company said.
The PHEV technology integrates electric motors within the transmission, which allows pure electric driving while also increasing the efficiency of the internal combustion system of plug-in hybrids.
The PHEV transmissions are just one of several new product lines expected out of ZF’s Laurens County facility in the next few years.
A $200 million upgrade to the facility announced in 2021 saw the first units of the company’s PowerLine eight-speed automatic transmission for commercial vehicles roll off assembly lines in late 2023.
“ZF Gray Court is our North American premier flex-manufacturing facility — producing technologies for today and tomorrow, but also for both passenger vehicles as well as commercial vehicles,” said Stephan von Schuckmann, a member of ZF’s board. “This site is our first ever to mirror the transition that the industry and the world is now navigating.”
ZF fast facts
- ZF Friedrichshafen AG based in Friedrichshafen, Germany
- 165,000 employees at 168 facilities in 32 countries
- Revenue for fiscal 2022 of $45.3 billion (43.8 billion euros)
- Gray Court facility is 1.69 million square feet at 2846 N. Old Laurens Road
