News

Back in December, we highlighted the Toyota-Toyota Tsusho announcement of an electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant in central North Carolina, calling it “A Massive Win, For So Many Reasons, Along the Carolina Core Freeway.”

That announcement was, and remains, a massive win. A $1.3 billion investment in automotive manufacturing by a global leader is an incredible economic development victory.

It also helped to validate the efforts by many greater North Carolina Piedmont economic development organizations to brand the “Carolina Core” region.

Earlier this week, North Carolina received a second, even more massive announcement — the Vietnamese company VinFast announced that it would begin manufacturing electric vehicles – mid-sized and full-sized SUVs — within a few years. The $2 billion investment — the largest in North Carolina history — will lead to production beginning in 2024 at the Triangle Innovation Point site along the US 1 freeway near Sanford.

Two multi-billion investments in a matter of months have gone a long way to cement the Carolina Core as our state’s focus for vehicle manufacturing, and a national center for the future of EVs.

In addition, these and other announcements further accentuate the need to accelerate our investment in mobility infrastructure that serves commerce, commuting, and all forms of travel as our growth rate continues to increase.

The regional business community is focused intently on highlighting and promoting the need and opportunity — and our RTA Regional Leadership Tour to South Florida occuring this week is one more example of that.

Let’s get moving,

Joe Milazzo II, PE
RTA Executive Director

RTA is the voice of the regional business community on transportation

www.letsgetmoving.org
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