Driving force: San Antonio picks up speed in auto industry
Robotic equipment weld together the cabin of a truck as Navistar holds a ribbon cutting ceremony with local government officials at its new factory on the South Side. The million square-foot facility is expected to produce heavy duty commercial trucks at a rate of 110 vehicles rolling off the line per day. The plant is equipped to produce diesel engine and fully electric vehicles according to Navistar officials.For years, San Antonio city leaders had tried and failed.
Manufacturing employment in San Antonio topped 52,000 last fall, its highest level in more than 20 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Across Texas, the number of people working in factories today — just over 900,000 — is slightly lower than it was in 2002. Toyota itself also recently completed a $400 million expansion of its plant, where it soon will produce the Sequoia SUV alongside the Tundra pickup.
The shift to automotive research and development could make San Antonio a hub for high-wage jobs in zero-carbon transportation in the years ahead, city officials say. DeLorean said its San Antonio employees will earn about $140,000 annually on average. Workers produce seat padding at Avanzar Interior Technologies, Friday, Oct. 23, 2020. Avanzar makes interior parts for the Toyota Tundra and Tacoma trucks.Then-Mayor Henry Cisneros led the city’s first trade delegation to Japan in 1985, where he befriended Naoko Shirane, a relative of Toyota’s founding family. The city hired her and her husband to promote San Antonio to Japan corporations.
Today, 23 on-site manufacturers supply parts to Toyota — everything from car seats to hood locks. Toyota’s factory employs around 3,000, and its suppliers employ another 4,000 workers. As Toyota developed the supplier park, the company asked Cisneros for a list of wealthy Hispanic business people in the city with the cash and the willingness to become partners in Toyota’s parts suppliers.
The geography of the auto industry has changed over the last 20 years, to San Antonio’s benefit. The absence of strong unions in Texas — compared with the industrial Midwest and other parts of the U.S. — helped pull Toyota south, according to Wolff’s book.
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