Tesla, the electric car company, is building a massive battery factory in Northern Nevada. State lawmakers promised it some billion dollars in tax incentives to get it here.
Now a new electric car company called Faraday Future may be on its way to North Las Vegas.
Last week, Gov. Brian Sandoval's office said he personally met with officials from the electric car developer about building a factory in Southern Nevada. However, there is no agreement in place and it's too early to say whether he'll summon the Legislature to a special session to talk about tax incentives.
Assembly Speaker John Hambrick told KNPR's State of Nevada that he has no personal knowledge of talks or what any incentive package would be, but he would support it, if the state needed it to retain a competitive edge.
“I think that the state is very well suited but if we need to potentially have some type of incentive to better our competitive position in these issues, by all means,” Hambrick said.
The speaker supports the idea that Nevada needs to diversy its economy and an electric car company could help with that.
“It's always nice to have a diverse economy," Hambrick said. "This would certainly benefit the south as Tesla has benefited the north”
Faraday Future is a startup company and is expected to have assemble an electric car in 2017.
Hambrick said it is not just the direct jobs a large manufacturing company would bring but the "ripple effect" that would boost the whole economy.
North Las Vegas officials want to lure a factory to their city. The Las Vegas Sun has reported they've commissioned a study estimating such a project could bring 4,000 jobs.
Sandoval called a special session in 2014 to approve $1.3 billion in tax incentives for electric carmaker Tesla's northern Nevada gigafactory.
According to Faraday Future's website, other states being considered as a home for the factory location are Louisiana and Georgia.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report)
John Hambrick, Speaker of the Assembly, R-Las Vegas
