If North Carolina wants to invest $1 billion plus,
why not design and build cars in the Piedmont Triad?
"...The effort even had a codename: Project New World...
Over several weeks, North Carolina's proposed package of incentives grew from $600 million to more than $1.5 billion in cash, training and savings on taxes — almost the total cost of the factory.
...In the end, the companies believed it could not "bend the supply chain" into North Carolina to make its manufacturing process as smooth as possible.
But by being in Huntsville,
it'll be barely a dozen miles from where Toyota builds roughly 700,000 engines a year.
"One of the overriding things that we were continually bumping up against
was the Toyota supply chain,"
...And so Toyota-Mazda left North Carolina's massive package on the table when the companies announced in January they would build their $1.6 billion factory with 4,000 employees at a site near Huntsville, Ala...
Greensboro and Randolph County leaders worked for more than three years to assemble 1,900 acres in the northeast corner of Randolph from scores of individual owners at a price of $48 million. Ultimately, the cost was borne by Randolph County government, the North Carolina Railroad Co. and the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite Foundation, an arm of the Joseph M. Bryan Foundation.
That doesn't count all the utilities and roads that Toyota-Mazda would need extended to the site, which totaled $250 million — $37.5 million of which were water and sewer lines built by the city of Greensboro.
...It was a sweetheart deal for Toyota-Mazda.
But in the end, money couldn’t buy a relationship.
...In Toyota's case, the final decision was likely made because its supply chain is closer to the Huntsville location.
.
.
If North Carolina wants to invest $1 billion plus, why not design and build cars in the Piedmont Triad?
