1.15.2007

Granholm almost at another touchdown: possible score of 300 jobs!

Not a done deal yet, but hopefully contracts like these can undo the foundation of spin from the MI-GOP about that "single state recession" nonsense.

From the Detroit Free Press:

In addition, Gov. Jennifer Granholm laid a hard-sell pitch on Tesla founder and CEO Martin Eberhard last week to also put a $100-million, 300-employee Tesla manufacturing plant in Michigan -- a factory earlier reported to be headed for Arizona, North Carolina or California.


It would be a serious boon to the Michigan economy, and also be a nice bonus for alternative energies -- one of the four cornerstones to the 21st Century Jobs Fund.


Tesla Motors was formed in 2003 by Eberhard, 46, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who sold the digital book company NuvoMedia for $187 million, and by his partner Marc Tarpenning. Last year, they began selling their first product, the $100,000 Tesla Roadster, which is powered by lithium-ion batteries and boasts a range of 250 miles per charge.

[...]

Tesla's U.S. manufacturing plant and the Rochester Hills engineering center would be focused chiefly on the company's next-generation electric vehicle, a sedan that Eberhard hopes will cost around $50,000 and sell about 10 times the volume of the roadster.


If this goes through it will be a huge touchdown for team Michigan. And it might keep pushing the Big 3 toward that little thing called an electric (or a plug-in hybrid) car.

You go, JG! Let's hope Tesla comes over to the Great Lakes State!

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