[Source: Sacramento Business Journal] Atieva, the electric carmaker that placed Sacramento on a short list this year for locating a car manufacturing plant, has selected a site in Arizona, according to the tech news site Recode.
A private event at Atieva’s Menlo Park office on Friday will unveil the design of its vehicle, which company officials have touted as a rival to Tesla Motors Inc.’s cars, anonymous sources told Recode in a Thursday report.
The factory will be located in Casa Grande, a town of about 50,000 people, nearly 50 miles south of Phoenix, a source told Recode. Casa Grande was previously one of the locations considered by Elon Musk’s’s Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) for the $5 billion “gigafactory” that eventually landed outside of Reno, Nevada.
A Sacramento County official said Atieva had not informed the county of its plans for the plant. The official confirmed that Sacramento County worked with Atieva this year on a potential location within the region.
Sacramento area officials were first notified in spring 2015 that an electric carmaker was considering the capital region for a vehicle manufacturing plant.
The company eventually narrowed its California search to Sacramento and Tracy for the location of a $530 million factory that would create more than 1,000 jobs, according to public records.
The Greater Sacramento Economic Council was at least initially involved in the negotiation, although the organization has not commented publicly on it. A GSEC representative declined to comment on Recode report.
Source: Sacramento Business Journal
October 20, 2016
