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by reportingsjr 2012 days ago
That size comparison doesn't actually show a comparison. It only has the footprints for the other factories, and the entirety of the land purchase for the texas factory. What a bizarre thing!

If you look at the planning documents you'll see that the planned footprint for the texas factory is probably a similar size to the plans for the rest of their "giga" factories. https://electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2020/09/Tesla...
1 comments
abernard1 2012 days ago
It explains the footprints in the article. They're largely not usable, whereas the Austin one is.

These are manufacturing jobs. It is not exactly like California has a better environment for that than Texas.

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reportingsjr 2011 days ago
Your second statement struck me, and I was curious how the manufacturing sectors compare for California vs Texas.

Numbers from the National Association of Manufacturers:

California: $316.7b manufacturing output, 10.67% of state product, 7.72% of employment. [1]

Texas: $230.45b manufacturing output, 12.98% of state product, 7.04% of employment. [2]

So really, it doesn't seem like one state is particularly better than the other for manufacturing by the numbers.

1: https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2019-california...

2: https://www.nam.org/state-manufacturing-data/2019-texas-manu...

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abernard1 2010 days ago
> Your second statement struck me, and I was curious how the manufacturing sectors compare for California vs Texas.

And Wall Street was great in New York until they moved to Florida, North Carolina, and Hawaii... and Oil headquarters were huge in California until they moved to Texas... and Big Auto was big in Michigan until they moved to the South and on and on.

What is so mind-boggling about all these people not seeing the trends is acting like what is is what has to be. There's no divine right for these companies to remain in California. It has a terrible business climate. Were it not for oil, agriculture, and defense in parts of CA the Bay Area loathes, there would be very little actual "stuff" produced in California. Software has no geographic attachment to the land like ag or oil, so there's no reason they have to be forced to the Central Valley. They can just leave.

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