FREMONT, Calif. (AP) — In a busy factory, machinists move sheets of aluminum roll in the back door to be molded, stamped, twisted and notched into high-tech electric cars that sell for more than $60,000 each.
Down the road in another plant, crews slice solar cells, place them under glass sheets and create panels that ship by the boxful to Europe. Elsewhere in this town, industrial workshops and laboratories buzz with workers building everything from robots to microprocessors.
Welcome to Fremont, Calif., a nondescript suburb of 217,000 tucked in the high-tech region between San Francisco and the Silicon Valley where something unique is happening: manufacturing.
From Tesla Motors, making cutting-edge cars, to Solaria, making solar panels, manufacturers are drawn to Fremont by incentives including a five-year waiver on business taxes, an expedited regulatory process, proximity to Silicon Valley firms and a skilled labor force.