Board OKs tax credit for 3rd electric car company

Associated Press

June 16, 2016

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A state board on Thursday approved $10 million in tax credits for NextEV USA, the latest electric vehicle company to establish its U.S. headquarters in California.

The company with Chinese financing based in San Jose, California, is the third in the hyper-competitive electric car market to receive a multimillion-dollar tax credit from California Competes, a board that hands out credits to promote job creation.

NextEV is promising to create more than 900 research and development jobs in California by 2020 in exchange for the tax credits, which were among nearly $47 million approved Thursday.

The company’s first commercial vehicles are slated to go to market in China next year, NextEV attorney Paula Brown told the board, but the “brains and the heart of that car is Silicon Valley.”

NextEV has not decided where to conduct its manufacturing, but is considering California, Brown said. The jobs being added will be primarily in research, engineering and design, and could include a San Francisco design center, she said.

“2019 will be a global vehicle, which means it has to be much higher safety standards than the vehicle that we’re planning for China,” Brown said.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration previously awarded $15 million for Tesla for 4,400 jobs. Tesla opted last year to build its new battery plant in neighboring Nevada.

Other credits approved Thursday include:

— $6 million to OWB Packers Inc. to create 605 jobs in Brawley, in the Imperial Valley near the Mexican border.

— $3 million to Pabst Brewing Company to create 328 jobs in northern or central California.

— $3 million to GreenPower Motor Company Inc., an electric bus manufacturing company, to create 190 jobs in Porterville.

— $1.6 million to Qico Inc., a cremation equipment manufacturer, to create 80 jobs in San Diego.

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