Panasonic picks Kansas for $4b EV battery plant Kansas has landed the largest economic development project in its history, with Japanese tech giant Panasonic set to build a $4 billion electric vehicle battery plant in the state. Panasonic, which supplies most of Tesla's EV batteries, will build its new battery plant in De Soto, a town on the western edge of the American …
Wichita is a fantastic town in the USA. Yes Wichita is out of the way. Wonderful people. The best Zoo and Bar-b-que "Hog Wild". Great school Wichita State. Go Shockers. Wichita so richly deserves a non aviation company. Located in the heart of the breadbasket of the USA. Thank you Panasonic.
The US government (State) handing out pallets of money to companies that don't need it. It has to be kept in mind that if they do actually wind up hiring 4,000 people, those people will need a place to live driving the local price of housing through the roof. The city will need to construct roads to handle the added traffic, waste water plants to take care of the ... well, you know, more police, fire and emergency medical service, etc, ad nauseam. The'll need more schools, parks and city services. It's not cheap to add the needed services to a city rapidly when a large company rolls into town. It's expensive to bail the city out when they can't make the bond payments or retirement contributions for all of the government employees when the company doesn't meet its promises or when those requirements expire long before the added infrastructure is paid for.
Hmm, only 700 miles from their prime customer's facility in Austin, TX. Yeah, that's efficient, not. Unless, of course, the cells will be sent to Sparks, NV to be incorporated into battery packs. That's only 1,600 miles away and then a total of 3,300 miles if the pack is sent to Texas.
Desoto is on the edge of the KC metro area. I think 1.7m people can manage 4000 more. The town is minutes away from the Kansas Turnpike. They have their choice of intermodal facilities for major rail lines. And with the purchase of Kansas City Southern rail by Canadian Pacific, a direct route from Mexico to Canada.
I'd prefer the water here used for chipmaking rather than bottled up by Nestle and sold at Costco (and everywhere else).
Their filtration is poor; Aquafina (by Pepsi) is much better. Dasani (by Coke) is a bad-tasting joke.
Some might say "oop" instead of "up", but they also say "ope" instead of "oops", as in "Ope, 'scuse me."
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