The Center for Economic Accountability (CEA) is a nonpartisan think tank that opposes corporate welfare. Each December since its founding in 2018, the CEA names the "Worst Economic Development Deal of the Year." And in a year with three times as many projects with billion-dollar state development subsidies as the year before, an electric vehicle (E.V.) factory in Georgia outran the competition.
When two out of every three E.V.s sold in the U.S. is made by Tesla, there is room in the market for competitors. Irvine-based Rivian is one of the most promising, with high-profile investments from Ford and Amazon, including a deal to manufacture 100,000 all-electric Amazon delivery vans by 2030. The company makes luxury all-electric trucks and SUVs from a single factory in Normal, Illinois. To expand its operations, it announced in December 2021 that it would be opening a second factory in northeast Georgia. In exchange, state and local officials, including the Georgia Department of Economic Development (GDEcD), crafted a package of tax credits and state incentives valued at $1.5 billion.
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