“Unlike NCR,” Springboro Mayor John Agenbroad said, the head of the Orion, Mich.-based Cobasys is giving Springboro and Ohio economic development officials an opportunity to put together a package of incentives to compare with enticements being offered by their Michigan counterparts.
“We understand Michigan’s really pushing hard for this,” Agenbroad said.
Last month, Lt. Gov. and U.S. Senate candidate Lee Fisher arrived at the plant off North Pioneer Boulevard, expecting to talk about how the plant was a great example of the kind of high-tech, alternative-energy manufacturers that could return Ohio its place as one of the country’s leading manufacturing states.
Instead, he — along with city and county economic development officials — was confronted by the uncertainties of the plant’s future in the global plans of SB LiMotive, a new company begun in 2008 by Korean-based Samsung and German-based Bosch. Union officials said the plant should still have “a couple years” of work for Daimler-Chrysler. On July 31, City Manager Chris Thompson met with representatives from Cobasys, the Governor’s office and the Ohio Department of Development to open dialog on keeping the plant — once part of GM — in Springboro and Ohio.There are troubling signs.
Cobasys wasn’t among the companies benefiting from billions in federal stimulus money distributed under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act — Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative.
According to the joint venture’s literature, “At locations in Korea and Germany, SB LiMotive currently is setting the stage for series production of automotive battery systems.”
SB LiMotive says it wants an American footprint, but acknowledges no long-term decision has been made on where the batteries will be produced.
We’ll have to wait and see if the new owners will decide to keep the roughly 150 jobs in Springboro — or the U.S., for that matter.
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