Mustang Country International
August 13th, 2010
The Auto Industry Is One Big Melting Pot
Question: Which car is made in America the Ford Fiesta or the Toyota Camry? Actually, it is the Toyota Camry. The Fiesta is made in Mexico. It may surprise you but many Japanese and German autos are built in the good U.S of A.
Foreign auto manufacturers have plants spread out around the U.S. For example, BMW makes many of its models in Spartensburg, South Carolina. This factory has been opened since the 90′s and is responsible for thousands of American jobs.
Want to know who the first foreign company is to have a factory here? It is Toyota. Toyota was so eager for Toyota to open a plant that it even offers generous tax incentives to the company.This factory makes some of Toyota’s best selling cars.
The fact is that during the last 20 years or so plants owned by Asian and European car manufacturers have sprung up all over the south including such states as Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Georgia and Texas. The section of the country with an economy that lagged behind the north used the foreign auto makers to increase their economic potential. No wonder then that when the federal government moved to bailout General Motors and Chrysler, Senators and Congressmen from these states cried foul. They were protecting their constituency — Toyota, Hyundai, Volkswagen and BMW.
These states actually welcomed foreign auto plants and helped to build the infrastructure to make their existence even possible. Moreover these states have Right to Work laws which discourage the development of unions. Ford Flower Mound has a large selection of new and used cars in Dallas and Ft Worth.
What these states discovered is that every job in auto production supports five other jobs in the economy. Auto manufacturing plants attract other industries including steel, tires, rubber, programmers and auto dealerships. So it made a lot of sense for Alabama, for example, to spend close to $1 billion over a 15 year period on such things as tax abatements, worker training and road construction. For its $1 billion investment Alabama lured $7 billion in investments. Alabama offered Mercedes Benz huge incentives which reached over the $200 milllion range. What the state got was a plant that employs about 1,500 people in the town of Vance. Ford Grapevine serves The Dallas and Ft Worth area with a wide selection of cars like the F-150, Mustang and Flex.
Volkswagen has invested $1 billion in a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee and BMW has been a fixture in South Carolina since the 1990s and now assembles the X5 and X6 crossover coupes there. The bottom line is that the international automobile industry has changed and as a result, some American cars are not American made while many Asian and European cars are.
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