business

Mitsubishi Motors to relocate North American HQ to Tennessee

13 Comments
By KIMBERLEE KRUESI

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13 Comments
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I have been driving by the Mitsubishi building in Cypress for decades, so I think they probably bought it pretty cheap, and stand to make millions in profit when they sell it. Land in Tennessee is way cheaper, but the climate is far from ideal. They have tornadoes, floods, high humidity and mosquitoe infestations in the summer, and cold winters. Lots of barbequed food. Nice to place to visit in the spring.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Moving closer to their fanbase.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It makes good business and management sense when the business environments are compared.

California is suffering with the high tax rates for business as well as personal, and extremely difficult and high compliance requirements on almost everything, besides the high cost of operation as well as living. California also is not where most automakers' factories are.

With the current immigration issues, including sanctuary cities, which taxes businesses to fund them, along with the increasing unemployed and homeless growing in major cities in California, just the safety, security and health issues would motivate a company to relocate.

As for the weather.., Japan has more such issues than Tennessee.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

U.S. News and World Report ranked California as the 35th safest state, and Tennessee near the bottom for safety, at 47.

U.S. News and World Report ranked Tenn. at 22 for affordability. The two states with the best climates, California and Hawaii, came in at 49 and 50, respectively. Where people like to live tends to be more expensive.

California does indeed have a large homeless population, but that is understandable. Who wants to be homeless in the snow?

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Companies can suffer morale problems among their workers when they re-locate facilities simply because they're cheaper. Boeing from Seattle to North Carolina, now beset with quality problems. Goldman Sachs from Manhattan to New Jersey, which had to be abandoned due to complaints, and so on.

Cali is going to attract much better human resources.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

California has been losing the larger Japanese manufacturers to the Midwest, Texas and Southern states for a while now. I just spoke to an US attorney that did a few of these deals and he said, all in, the cost of doing business is about 30-35% cheaper on average than California (with the big ones being taxes and wages). On the flip side, many of these other states in many cases just do not have the labor base to support a huge move unless it is unskilled Labor.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Well its certainly not surprising after Nissan (2006), Honda (2016), Toyota (2014) and Kubota (2015) headquarters departed from just the Torrance area of Los Angeles.

As others have noted the unfriendly business environment in California (among the worst) is mostly due to a Democratic majority addicted to giving away too much free stuff and over regulating businesses. Thus, high taxes on the middle class, the wealthy and businesses. Sacramento politicians just shrug when companies like Toyota say they are leaving. See you and take your high paying jobs with you!

Well, one lasting legacy that Japanese and Japanese Americans have left is a thriving Japanese food culture in Los Angeles and elsewhere. Even Japanese ramen chains are at war here with mostly Asian (Chinese and Korean) American customers.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

California (and pretty much all of the East Coast) is just becoming very anti-business. It's going to bite them all in the rear-end very soon.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

If you are an automaker, it makes sense to move to Tennessee, hopefully there is enough skilled labor.

If you are a software/hardware/tech/biotech firm, you best stay on the coasts, the talent level for engineers is unreal in state of California. Yes, California is 'anti-business', but the state consistently produces some of the best engineering talent in the world (Stanford, Berkeley, Cal-tech, UC-San Francisico). Massachusetts is also 'anti-business' but also produces an unreal amount of talent from MIT, Harvard, etc..

I lived in Tennessee for 10 years. There is a yawning gap between California and Tennessee when it comes to software engineers, etc..

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I am a Californian. It's a nice place to live if you are well-educated and wealthy. For the true middle class -- not the doctors, lawyers, and IT managers -- the cost of housing in the metro areas is prohibitive.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Whoops I just noticed in my original post I said the East coast is anti-business. Obviously I meant West coast, since that's where California is and I also happen to live on the upper end of it in Seattle where we seem to be so proud to do our best to chase away huge businesses like Amazon and Boeing.

I am a Californian. It's a nice place to live if you are well-educated and wealthy. For the true middle class -- not the doctors, lawyers, and IT managers -- the cost of housing in the metro areas is prohibitive.

I grew up in the San Fernando Valley and have watched Calilfornia go from a place I always wanted to return to into a place I'm glad to leave when I'm done visiting. It's sad. Of course, we're not much better up here in the Pacific Northwest now either. Good luck affording a home anywhere near a major city.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Good move.

 Land in Tennessee is way cheaper, but the climate is far from ideal.

The tax climate is way better. Taxpayers are moving out of California in droves.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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