Was Toyota Driven Out of California? Not So Fast
The trouble is that taxes, regulations and business climate appear to have had nothing to do with Toyota’s move. It came down to a simple matter of geography and a plan for corporate consolidation, Toyota’s North American chief told The Times. And in the big picture, California’s and Texas’ economies are growing at a similar pace, with corporate relocations — in either direction — representing only a tiny slice of job growth in both states.
“It may seem like a juicy story to have this confrontation between California and Texas, but that was not the case,” said Jim Lentz, Toyota’s North American chief executive.
Toyota left California to move its company’s brainpower, now divided among offices in three states, into one headquarters close to the company’s manufacturing base, primarily in the South.
“It doesn’t make sense to have oversight of manufacturing 2,000 miles away from where the cars were made,” Lentz said. “Geography is the reason not to have our headquarters in California.”