The Motor City is moving south as EVs change the automotive industry – By Michael Wayland (CNBC) / Aug 14, 2022
- Automakers are investing in towns across the American South.
- The new plants bring tax and workforce advantages as the industry moves toward electric vehicles.
- But the expansion south comes with unique challenges.
SPRING HILL, Tenn. – Jack Weaver can point to a cannon on a Civil War battlefield from the comfort of a shaded bench in his backyard — a visible marker of his land’s rich past. As he speaks about his small town, it’s over the loud rumble of cars and trucks at the intersection in front of his farmhouse red home.
The 82-year-old retired dairy farmer has lived in Spring Hill nearly his entire life. He’s watched the once-quiet town in middle Tennessee grow into a burgeoning Nashville suburb. The evolution of Spring Hill has come in conjunction with a population boom in the state as well as the introduction of new industries — in particular, auto companies — that have poured billions of dollars in new investments into the state.
“It’s good and it’s bad,” says Weaver, who complains about cars hitting his fence and the traffic General Motors’ Spring Hill plant has brought since it opened in 1990. “I’m not against development at all. I’m not. I think a man outta do what he wants with his own land.”
Detroit is the city that “put the world on wheels,” but it’s towns like Spring Hill and others in neighboring states that are attracting the most investments from automakers in recent years, as production priorities shift to a battery-powered future with electric vehicles.
