After bagging Toyota's North American headquarters and being picked as one of four states competing for a $5 billion Tesla "gigafactory," Texas boosters are asserting the Lone Star State's emergence as a major player in the American auto industry.
Even before Toyota's bombshell announcement April 28 that it was moving its corporate nerve center from California to the Dallas suburb of Plano, the second-largest state already ranked No. 6 for automotive manufacturing employment, with 476 automotive manufacturing firms employing 33,800-plus workers, according to a 2013 state report.