Nokian to Build Factory in Tennessee

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Originally Posted By: khittner
I guess Tennessee labor costs must be competitive Nokian's Russian workforce. Great.

Probably not competitive, but when you factor in the cost of shipping from Russia to the US and any possible import duties, then it must make financial sense to have a local presence here in the US.
 
Kumho Tire Co. Inc. builds new $413 million car tire plant in Macon, Ga.
http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20150902/NEWS/150909992


Chinese manufacturer Sentury Tire picks LaGrange for new $530 million factory (west Georgia, near the Alabama line)
http://www.ajc.com/business/chinese-manu...QFq8Vtlqv4UazI/


Hankook Tire picks Nashville for North American headquarters, Hankook Tire plans to start making tires in Clarksville by year's end
http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/re...ville/82953810/
 
Their US HQ is in Tennessee, it makes sense to have their factory there also. I thought Nokian had a factory in China also?
 
Originally Posted By: Linctex

Kumho Tire Co. Inc. builds new $413 million car tire plant in Macon, Ga.
http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20150902/NEWS/150909992


Chinese manufacturer Sentury Tire picks LaGrange for new $530 million factory (west Georgia, near the Alabama line)
http://www.ajc.com/business/chinese-manu...QFq8Vtlqv4UazI/


Hankook Tire picks Nashville for North American headquarters, Hankook Tire plans to start making tires in Clarksville by year's end
http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/re...ville/82953810/

Southeast decided long time ago to become third world economy.
While Hankook picked Nashville as HQ, 99% of those companies have HQ's and other well paid jobs located in North East or West.
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: Linctex

Kumho Tire Co. Inc. builds new $413 million car tire plant in Macon, Ga.
http://www.tirebusiness.com/article/20150902/NEWS/150909992


Chinese manufacturer Sentury Tire picks LaGrange for new $530 million factory (west Georgia, near the Alabama line)
http://www.ajc.com/business/chinese-manu...QFq8Vtlqv4UazI/


Hankook Tire picks Nashville for North American headquarters, Hankook Tire plans to start making tires in Clarksville by year's end
http://www.tennessean.com/story/money/re...ville/82953810/

Southeast decided long time ago to become third world economy.
While Hankook picked Nashville as HQ, 99% of those companies have HQ's and other well paid jobs located in North East or West.


Not sure what you mean by "third world economy". These are pretty good paying jobs and non-union (for the most part) to boot. TN has Denso, Toyota's engine plant, VW has a large production plant, Nissan's HQ and production plant and others as well.

Don't forget about Volvo's new plant being built in SC. BMW has a big plant in AL, Kia has a big plant in GA, Hyundai has plant in AL, etc., etc.

The traditional South has many new blue collar and white collar jobs over the last 20+ years.
 
yes, third world economy.
I lived in AL (by the way, BMW has plant in SC).
Those are non-union jobs (not something to be proud of). I worked for consulting company that was involved in deal with VW. Huntsville in AL was finalist with Chattanooga. Reason why Chattanooga got plant is better education, since unions (those evil monsters) in Germany pressured VW to choose location where, guess what: kids of German employees can get decent education. Then, VW wanted to unionized workers in TN, which of course state legislature n TN went crazy over it and of course never happened.
Most of those companies do not have HQ's in South East for a reason. It is not all about wages, but public schools, available highly educated work force etc.
AL was for a long time favorite spot for these companies since they could pay lower wages then in TN or GA. However, politics in AL went nuts in 2009 with all that attempt to have crazier immigration law then AZ (a lot of lawmakers in AL were offended that AZ would be labeled as crazier state then AL, so they went to do some hard work). Although foreign companies were warning left and right about that law, they passed it. Few days after law became effective, some local Wyatt Erp in Tuscaloosa arrested MB executive for not having all papers with him, and since then only Airbus fulfilled its operation of bringing plant to Mobil. But AL never got any new meaningful FDI after that. Kumho and others opening in La Grange is because of KIA there and Hyundai in Montgomery, AL. Problem in all this is that these companies are not opening design centers etc. in those states. Those jobs are reserved for CA, MI, NY, NJ etc. Hyundai has plant in Montgomery, but most operations, including all financial operation of Hyundai is in CA.
Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with one job opened. But problem is that most of South East is not working to attract true high paying jobs. Now, TN is doing a lot of stuff different then let's say AL, MS or LA.
 
Originally Posted By: WhizkidTN
Not sure what you mean by "third world economy".

An emphasis on manufacturing (and raw materials) rather than service industries.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Originally Posted By: WhizkidTN
Not sure what you mean by "third world economy".

An emphasis on manufacturing (and raw materials) rather than service industries.

Well, someone needs to do that to. Issue is that these states do not balance very well between low paying and high paying jobs.
 
Clearly. The question is the ratio, yeah?

That's where I thought you were going. Apologies if I was wrong.
 
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Clearly. The question is the ratio, yeah?

That's where I thought you were going. Apologies if I was wrong.

Well yeah, maybe I suppose to be clear. But there is so much emphasis in the South to bring these kind of jobs, and so much emphasis to gut education, that there is only one possible outcome.
Germany is per capita largest manufacturing country in the world, but they do not have problems balancing that. Though, those evil unions are making sure manufacturing jobs are also paid well (in reality, not measured by South East standards).
 
A factory worker in the auto industry in Germany can make more money than a lot of university graduates.
 
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Originally Posted By: edyvw

Well yeah, maybe I suppose to be clear. But there is so much emphasis in the South to bring these kind of jobs, and so much emphasis to gut education, that there is only one possible outcome.
Germany is per capita largest manufacturing country in the world, but they do not have problems balancing that. Though, those evil unions are making sure manufacturing jobs are also paid well (in reality, not measured by South East standards).


Factory workers in Germany have influence that US blue collar workers could only dream about.
A US semiconductor company had a fab (wafer factory) in Germany that it wanted to shut down, but it couldn't legally just close the building and fire everybody...the whole process had to be worked out with the worker's council. Instead of dealing with that, they found a startup company (that I ended up working for later) that was willing to "buy" it for a token sum with the understanding that they were going to keep running the fab.
Now, that company ending up basically collapsing a few years later (after I left) and I'm not sure what happened to the fab at that point. But, the workers got a few more years of pay and time to look for a better job before that happened. Seems like this level of protection hasn't killed off the German economy by a long shot...
Of course, those workers are also paying taxes out of the wazoo compared to what US workers are used to...while also getting social supports like universal health care and good unemployment protection.
 
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And on top of that, their union bosses have seats on the companies' boards. That increases their influence on the business, but it also increases the business's influence on them. The relationship is generally not so adversarial as it is here, because everyone feels more like they're in it together. The social capital from that relationship is HUGE.
 
Good to have another US factory
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In the past, Nokian has used Bridgestone as a contract manufacturer for some of their tires, and I believe the Bridgestone plant they used was in TN.
 
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Clearly. The question is the ratio, yeah?

That's where I thought you were going. Apologies if I was wrong.

Well yeah, maybe I suppose to be clear. But there is so much emphasis in the South to bring these kind of jobs, and so much emphasis to gut education, that there is only one possible outcome.
Germany is per capita largest manufacturing country in the world, but they do not have problems balancing that. Though, those evil unions are making sure manufacturing jobs are also paid well (in reality, not measured by South East standards).


Not sure where you got the idea of "gutting education" in TN at least. Our Governor & legislature has been doing quite the opposite over the last several years (still with NO income tax). The general consensus here (TN) is that these jobs are paying pretty well, despite not being Unionized (in fact because of it). I've lived up North as well (all my kids where born in PA) and I can tell you our standard of living, based on our cost of living and income, is much better here. One of many reasons I moved back to TN.

And I have worked for one of the biggest German conglomerates there is for many years (Engineer). We could very well use the apprenticeship model here that is far more common in Germany for our blue collar citizens.
 
Originally Posted By: WhizkidTN
Originally Posted By: edyvw
Originally Posted By: d00df00d
Clearly. The question is the ratio, yeah?

That's where I thought you were going. Apologies if I was wrong.

Well yeah, maybe I suppose to be clear. But there is so much emphasis in the South to bring these kind of jobs, and so much emphasis to gut education, that there is only one possible outcome.
Germany is per capita largest manufacturing country in the world, but they do not have problems balancing that. Though, those evil unions are making sure manufacturing jobs are also paid well (in reality, not measured by South East standards).


Not sure where you got the idea of "gutting education" in TN at least. Our Governor & legislature has been doing quite the opposite over the last several years (still with NO income tax). The general consensus here (TN) is that these jobs are paying pretty well, despite not being Unionized (in fact because of it). I've lived up North as well (all my kids where born in PA) and I can tell you our standard of living, based on our cost of living and income, is much better here. One of many reasons I moved back to TN.

And I have worked for one of the biggest German conglomerates there is for many years (Engineer). We could very well use the apprenticeship model here that is far more common in Germany for our blue collar citizens.

I mentioned in previous post that TN is doing some stuff better (race to the top). Yes NO income tax to cover that, but huge federal subsidies. I lived in South, so let's not get into no tax issues, because South lives of federal subsidies. All Southern states (including TN) are getting more money back then what they pay.
However, rest of the South gutted education big time, especially AL and MS. I live for a long time in AL, and AL had pretty good streak with FDI. Since 2009, it is like they are racing to the bottom. First thing Bentley (guy that will end up in prison) did was cut taxes, and used education fund to make up for revenue loss. Good way to to invest in future.
Those are good paying jobs considering standard of living, I already said that. But key is what you mentioned about investing in other job skills etc. Reason why Nokian is opening plant there is: cheap labor that is qualified enough to do job. Period. There is nothing more to it. And that is a problem.
 
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