The Automotive Industry Is One Big Melting Point
Globalization has changed the auto industry forever. Many cars are built with parts which may have come from all parts of the world. Many American cars are built in plants overseas while many German and Japanese cars are built here.
There are foreign car factories all over the U.S; especially in the southern states. BMW, which is a German company, has a large factory in SC. The plant has the capability of making as many as 120,000 cars a year and it’s responsible for thousands of American jobs and livelihoods.
Honda has numerous factories spanning several states. All their factories combined have created more than twelve thousand American jobs. German luxury car manufacturer Mercedes-Benz has a plant in Vance, Alabama, can make more than 100,000 cars and employs 1,900 Americans. Another company which has a huge factory here is Mitsubishi; producer of the Eclipse, Galant and other cars.
Many of these plants are in the South; the Southern states welcomed these plants because of economic difficulty. No wonder then that when the federal government moved to bailout General Motors and Chrysler, Senators and Congressmen from these states were not to happy with that.
The existence of these plants lead to many other job possibilities such as new car dealerships, road building, programmers and many more. 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.
Some states are so eager for foreign companies to set up shop that they offer lots of tax breaks and incentives to these companies. One example of this is the state of Alabama; they offered Mercedes Benz over 200 million in tax breaks and incentives to open. Ford The Colony got lots of Ford trucks and SUV’s at low prices.
The next time you vow to only buy American, make sure to find out where the car is actually produced. It’s not enough to make a judgment based on the brand alone these days.
Visit your Ford Frisco dealership for great deals on cars in Texas.