< Previous148 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NFor advanced transportation technology, California is leading the way.When Shenzhen, China-based BYD went shopping for a U.S. manufacturing location, it followed the lead of other top players in the next-generation vehicle space. It went to Los Angeles County, California. at was back in . Today, BYD, which stands for “Build Your Dreams,” is churning out , electric buses a year and employing some workers at its newly expanded plant in Lancaster.Bolstered by a talent pool with roots in the aerospace industry and propelled by public policies and market demand, southern California’s electric vehicle industry is driving innovation and creating much-need manufacturing jobs.“Electric vehicle companies are popping up continually in the region,” says Judy Kruger, director of aerospace and advanced transportation for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation (LAEDC). “It’s because of market share and it’s also because L.A. is a hub of innovation with the talent to support it.” e Los Angeles area leads the nation in sales of electric vehicles. According to a report released in by G ARY DAUGHTERSgar y.daug hter s @ site s ele c tion.c omST A TE SPO TLIGHTCaliforniaThe futuristic, all-electric FF 91 remains a work in progress.SOURCE: Faraday FutureWhen Shenzhen, China-based BYD went shopping for a U.S. manufacturing location, it followed the lead of other WChina-based BYD WWWW150 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NMay by the International Council on Clean Transportation, the Los Angeles metropolitan area accounted for more than , electric vehicle sales from through . L.A. had new electric vehicle sales of nearly , during , more than twice as many as second-place San Jose. Tesla has found a home in southern California, as have Lucid Motors, Fisker Automotive, Faraday Future, Karma and Evelozcity. BYD is one of at least six electric bus makers that call the region home. Others include Proterra, Ebus, U.S. Hybrid Corporation, New Flyer Industries and Executive Coach Builders.“We’re very excited about the electric bus manufacturers that are cropping up in the region,” says Kruger. “You won’t fi nd another cluster like this in the U.S.”Asked why BYD chose to locate in Lancaster, with headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, the company’s vice president for North American operations, Patrick Duan, ticks off a list of factors.“Millions of people live here, so mobility and transportation is a huge thing,” says Duan. “On top of that, L.A. City and the State of California have pioneered in promoting zero-emission technologies in terms of transportation. Los Angeles has a mission to promote cleaner technology and more effi cient transportation.“Logistically,” says Duan, “L.A. With its North American headquarters in Los Angeles, China-based BYD is churning out electric buses from a factory in Lancaster, California.SOURCE: BYDYou won’t nd another cluster like this in the U.S.”—Judy Kruger, Director of Aerospace and Advanced Transportation, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 151County has two major ports, the Port of L.A. and the Port of Long Beach, and being in the business of manufacturing electric transportation vehicles, we import a lot of components globally. e convenience aspect is very important to us.“Lastly,” he says, “L.A. has a huge pool of talent for all kinds of gifted, experienced employees. In Lancaster, we were able to fi nd hundreds of talented workers. Even if they don’t have exactly the experience with electric vehicle I don’t think there’s such a thing as a production paradise. California’s the right place for us because this is where our customers will be.”— Dag Reckhorn, Senior Vice President, Global Manufacturing, Faraday Future152 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO Ntechnologies, the talent level is such that we can hire them and train them with their fundamental experience. at’s been very successful.” e Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority has set a target of converting its entire ,-bus fl eet to electric propulsion by and has signed a contract with BYD to build buses with an option to build more. e company also has a $-million contract for up to buses with the suburban Antelope Valley Transit Authority, which has a goal of becoming the nation’s fi rst fully electric fl eet by the end of this year. A state grant of more than $ million is helping to fund the purchase. BYD also has sold buses to Long Beach Transit, UCLA, Stanford University, Facebook, “and to a lot of other transit agencies and airports around the country,” says Duan.Last October, BYD, whose largest investor is Warren Buff ett’s Berkshire Hathaway, Inc., completed an expansion that quadrupled the size of its Lancaster plant to , sq. ft. (, sq. m.) and allowed it to nearly double the size of its workforce. “ e city of Lancaster and the city of L.A. have been very supportive of us,” Duan says. “Without their support and very fast reaction to our requests, we wouldn’t have been able to do this expansion. Lancaster has been very supportive in helping us fi nd talent, and they’ve also connected us with Antelope Valley Community College, which has programs that we’ve used for training our employees, especially production staff .“Two years ago we were at employees,” says Duan. “Today we’re at , and we’re on a curve bending up. We’re ramping up pretty quickly.”Photo: Getty Images S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 153Faraday Future Turns a CornerFour and a half years since the company’s founding by Chinese billionaire Jia Yeuting, Los Angeles-based Faraday Future is moving toward production of a real automobile. In a late August interview with Site Selection, Dag Reckhorn, the electric car company’s senior vice president of global manufacturing, said FF’s plant inside a former tire factory in Hanford, California, was close to completing its first test model of the long-awaited FF 91.“It’s a big milestone,” said Reckhorn.The company’s goal of bringing a car to market by the end of the year appears to have gone by the wayside, with officials saying the FF 91 will “probably” be available for purchase next year. Reckhorn says (Continued on page 158)154 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NThe nation’s largest secure test facility for autonomous and connected vehicles technology sits on 5,000 acres at the World War II-era Concord Naval Weapons Station in Contra Costa County, California. Created in 2014, GoMentum Station is the brainchild of Randell Iwasaki, executive director of the Contra Costa Transportation Authority, which runs the facility.Iwasaki hit upon the idea after a county of cial asked him think about ways to convert the former base in a way that would generate jobs.“As soon as I got out there,” Iwasaki tells Site Selection, “I thought it would be an amazing test facility. There’s a golden opportunity for a test bed here. With all the car companies down in San Francisco and Silicon Valley, wow, what an opportunity to attract some smart jobs to our county.”Located just 30 miles from the Bay Area, the former weapons depot has been transformed to test self-driving vehicles and connected vehicles — those tted with devices that enable them to communicate wirelessly with other vehicles and infrastructure.GoMentum has 20 miles of paved roads complete with tunnels, bridges, overcrossings and train tracks that allow for testing in a realistic environment without the real-life dangers of traf c and pedestrians. The decades-old roads are curvy and cracked, just like out in the real world. There’s a seven-mile stretch for high-speed testing and a “mini-city” among the former barracks with intersections, stop signs, obstructed views, sidewalks and signal lights. “You can run multiple intersections with vehicles running in tandem in a circuit and test whatever feature you want,” says Iwasaki. “And you can test those over and over again in a controlled environment. “Honda,” says Iwasaki, “has been testing the vehicle-to-infrastructure interface using a camera to see the red, yellow and green lights at a temporary signal. Lyft has said this is one of the most ef cient ways to test, in a controlled environment situation where you can do repeated tests and not disrupt anybody’s neighborhoods or the commute patterns. Then, when you’re ready for testing in a real environment, you go ahead and run the test that you’ve already run 1,000 times.”Honda was the rst carmaker to enter an agreement to use GoMentum. In addition to TESTING THE GoMentum’s “mini-city,” set among former barracks, features intersections, stop signs, obstructed views, sidewalks and signal lights. A “pedestrian” crosses in front of a test vehicle at GoMentum.Source: Contra Costa Transportation Authority“As soon as I got out there, I thought it would be an amazing test facility.”— Randell Iwasaki, Executive Director, Contra Costa Transportation AuthorityCars of Tomorrow S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 155Lyft, other partners include Baidu, Toyota Research Institute, Uber, SAIC, Intelligent Transportation Systems of Japan and Canada’s ELIX Wireless Charging Systems.GoMentum currently has a license to test on 2,100 of the former base’s 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares). The city and county have long-term plans to redevelop much of the site with housing, offices, parkland and possibly a college or technology training center. Iwasaki hopes GoMentum will become a magnet for quality jobs.“There are a lot of smart people in Contra Costa County that commute every day to San Francisco to the tech jobs or go down to Silicon Valley to those tech jobs,” he says. “We’re looking at creating some smart jobs here in Contra Costa County to where people don’t have to drive as far, and that’ll have an impact on the local economy.“When a car manufacturer starts doing research here in this area, then the companies that support them — the antenna, LIDAR and radar manufacturers, the cameras — are going to gravitate toward supporting that industry. Concord is a great place to try to start to grow this industry.” — Gary Daughters156 SEPTEMBER 2018 SI T E S E L E C T IO NJust days after Uber shelved its plans to develop an autonomous truck, a new industry entrant emerged with a bang in Mountain View, California. Kodiak Robotics announced August 7 that it had raised $40 million in Series A financing led by global investment firm Battery Ventures. Founded by Don Burnette, previously a co-founder of the self-driving trucking company Otto, and Paz Eschel, a former venture capitalist, Kodiak Robotics aims to alleviate strain on the freight market through self-driving technology. The American Trucking Association (ATA) reports that trucks haul more than 70 percent of all U.S. freight and generate over $700 billion in annual revenue. But with freight volume at record levels, driven largely by the growth of e-commerce, the trucking industry faces a crippling shortage of long-haul drivers — 51,000 at the end of last year, according to the ATA.“This financing, coming just three months after founding Kodiak Robotics, is a huge validation for our vision,” Burnette said. “We believe self-driving trucks will likely be the first autonomous vehicles S I T E S E L E C T I O N SEPTEMBER 2018 157Kodiak Robotics co-founders Don Burnette and Paz Eschel SOURCE: Kodiak Roboticsto support a viable business model, and we are proud to have the support of such high-profile investors to help us execute our plan.”San Francisco-based Uber announced it would shutter its self-driving truck program on July 31. Uber, which had purchased Otto in 2016, said that ending the program will help it focus on developing self-driving cars. Uber’s self-driving car program was suspended in March after a pedestrian in Tempe, Arizona, was struck and killed by one of Uber’s driverless vehicles. — Gary DaughtersNext >