Two major German automotive companies have agreed that their U.S. subsidiaries will do business with each other right here in South Carolina.

In separate statements Friday, ZF and BMW confirmed that ZF's plant in Laurens County — the German automotive supplier's only U.S. site for making transmissions — will at some unnamed point in the future start supplying transmissions to the BMW plant in Spartanburg County.

It marks a major step for BMW, which heretofore has sourced all its drive trains in Europe.

"This is a positive development for ZF and the community, and will certainly have a positive impact on the Upstate," ZF spokeswoman Ashley Van Horn told The Greenville News. "We continue to be thankful for the workforce and partnerships in the area that support us."

"Great news for South Carolina!" wrote Sky Foster, the manager for corporate communications at BMW's Spartanburg plant, in an email.

Automotive News first reported last month that BMW was seriously considering a U.S. supplier for transmissions. BMW's board chairman, Harald Krüger, had told reporters at the Geneva Auto Show that his company was in talks with "one supplier" for a transmission for the U.S.

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ZF seemed like an obvious choice since the company has an enormous plant just 22 miles from BMW's site near the Spartanburg-Greenville County line. The Friedrichshafen, Germany-based company also already supplies BMW with transmissions out of its German plants.

The deal announced Friday stands to be worth "double digit" billions to ZF, Van Horn said.

"This business win is the largest single order in the history of ZF," ZF’s CEO Wolf-Henning Scheider said in a statement.

The order from BMW is for ZF's latest 8-speed automatic transmission, a component that ZF designed to work for conventional fuel-burning vehicles as well as electric and hybrid ones.

Michael Hankel, a ZF management board member in charge of transmission technology and e-mobility, said in a company statement that the transmission's "modular construction" allows for flexibility, especially as BMW attempts to reduce greenhouse emissions.

"In addition, the possibility to easily change from one transmission variant to another allows our customer the flexibility to react to market requirements," Hankel said.

ZF will make transmissions for BMW's plants in Europe, China and the U.S. With 11,000 workers, the plant here is the largest in the world for BMW.

Van Horn and Foster did not have a timetable for when the U.S. ZF plant would start supplying BMW. The supplier's statement did suggest, however, that it will be a few years away. The first site for series production of the new gearboxes will be at the ZF plant in Saarbrücken in 2022, according to the company statement.

ZF can make up to 1.2 million transmissions a year in Laurens County, but currently serves only non-BMW customers out of that plant, which opened in 2013 and has been expanded since. The Spartanburg BMW plant has a capacity of up to 450,000 vehicles a year and last year produced about 357,000 X models.

BMW's head of finance Nicolas Peter said in an earnings call last month that tariffs between the U.S. and Europe likely will not be an issue in 2019, but this move to further localize its supply chain suggests the German automaker is nevertheless hedging its bets long-term against tariffs.