Daimler-Benz is moving production of its Mercedes C-class cars to a plant near Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Given the weakness of the US dollar versus the Euro and the non-unionized nature of labor in the southern US, Alabama is now a low-cost production area as compared to Germany.
As a Kentucky resident, I shouldn’t fall prey to anti-southern stereotyping, but it seems a bit of an oxymoron to have an Alabama-built Mercedes; when I think of Tuscaloosa, I think of Bear Bryant, not luxury cars. One of the poorest and most reviled states in the union (George Wallace at the schoolhouse door and the Selma goonishness against civil rights protesters get queued up in the memory banks) gets this new luxury car business, but it is precisely that it is relatively poor that the plant is based there.
Tuscaloosa is right on I-20 and within a short drive of Atlanta’s transportation nexus. It is more centrally located than I would have thought at first glance. Car transporters will have an easy time getting around most of the eastern half of the country, with the I-65 corridor up to Chicago nearby in Birmingham; I-59 can hook them up with I-75 in Chattanooga and access Ohio and Michigan and points northeast.
More car production in the US means more cars being transported and a better balance of trade with the rest of the world. Transporters serving the East Coast ports where German imports would be disembarked may be disappointed, but transporters in flyover country will be happy.
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