Interesting that 13 reports the opposite of Channel 8.
There is more speculation as to where Toyota plans to build its new engine factory. The Wall Street Journal is reporting Toyota officials plan to visit the Battle Creek – Kalamazoo area this month. The March Issue of Motor Trend magazine is reporting Benton Harbor will be the new the home of Toyota's engine plant.
With so much speculation, how close is Toyota to settling on a location? Dan Sieger, a spokesperson for Toyota says,”We have been studying this, looking at several sites and various states."
Toyota's study of locations for the new engine plant began last fall. Auto analyst Erich Merkle says there are a few obvious requirements that communities will need to have, "How close are they to highways, major thorough fares so that it is easy to transport product which is the engine which ultimately has to end up at the vehicle assembly plant."
Those assembly plants are based in Indiana and Ontario, which is why West Michigan is so attractive to Toyota. The other necessary requirement, "Do you have a qualified labor market is it well trained? Do you have labor that would be capable of supporting such a plant. And clearly I think Michigan meets those criteria.” says Merkle.
There is one downfall, Michigan's traditional union workforce. Right now only one of Toyota's twelve manufacturing plants is unionized. "That has traditionally been one of the areas that makes it a little bit difficult from a sales pitch perspective for our state because we are so heavily unionized.", says Merkle.
Another shot at the union workforce. Sad. I wish the unions didn't have such a bad name.