By Robert Kittle
Gov. Nikki Haley announced Monday that Volvo Cars has chosen South Carolina to build its first auto plant in the Western hemisphere. Volvo will invest $500 million in the plant, which is expected to create 2,000 jobs in the first ten years and 4,000 by 2030.
There were originally five states in the running, and the decision came down to the South Carolina site in Berkeley County, about 40 miles northwest of Charleston, and a site in Georgia near Savannah.
Commerce secretary Bobby Hitt, who used to work for BMW, says, “I think one of the draws for a company like Volvo Cars here is there is already an existing automotive supplier network here, and so basically they’re coming in and dropping themselves in-between BMW and Mercedes Benz vans. So we have three OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) in the state now as of today, all of which have supplier networks.”
Having an established automaker already in the state also gives us a good idea of what kind of impact Volvo will have. University of South Carolina research economist Joey Von Nessen says BMW has an annual economic impact on the state of about $16.6 billion, and supports 30,777 jobs. Not all of those are at BMW; the state now has more than 250 automotive suppliers.
Because of those suppliers, who move to the state or expand to supply automakers, a car maker moving to the state has a multiplier of four, Von Nessen says. For every one job created by Volvo, suppliers will create three more. He says a typical industry other than an automaker has a multiplier of two.
While suppliers, an existing auto industry, and a strong port were all factors that helped South Carolina land Volvo, Gov. Haley says, “What I believe won Volvo cars in South Carolina was our work force, because they saw the fact that this is a state where they build planes. We now have three car companies. We now have five tire companies. We have carbon fiber. We’ve got ATV. So what they knew was if we build it we build it well, and we build it with quality and we build it with loyalty and we built it with pride. And that’s something you can’t just find anywhere.”
Volvo plans to start construction this fall, with the first cars rolling off the assembly line in 2018. Volvo expects to make about 100,000 cars a year at its South Carolina plant.
The state has set up a special website for anyone interested in getting one of those Volvo jobs. You can find it by clicking here.
