Electric car manufacturer chooses Mesa over Spartanburg

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A Canadian designer and maker of electric cars has chosen the desert over Spartanburg and a handful of other locations to build a manufacturing plant.

ElectraMeccanica Vehicles Corp., founded in 2015, specializes single-occupancy electric vehicles and custom electric vehicles. The company announced last year that Spartanburg was one of seven finalists for the Vancouver company’s assembly plant and engineering center.

ElectraMeccanica said today those seven finalists were narrowed in October to sites in Tennessee and Arizona, with the nod going today to Mesa, Ariz., a town in the greater Phoenix area.

“The proposed facility in Mesa will support ElectraMeccanica’s strategic plan to meet anticipated demand for their flagship Solo EV,” a news release said. “When fully operational, the facility is expected to create up to 500 new jobs and will be capable of producing up to 20,000 Solos per year. Altogether it will feature both a light vehicle assembly plant along with a state-of-the-art engineering technical center, including multiple labs to support comprehensive research facilities as well as vehicle chassis, battery pack and power electronics testing workshops.”