From Toyota to Jaguar, Carmakers Have Flocked to OC; Mitsubishi No. 1
Virtually every car on the freeways these days is represented in Orange County’s burgeoning landscape of automakers.
Just look at some of the names on the Business Journal’s inaugural list of automakers with operations here: Mitsubishi, Hyundai, Toyota Lexus, Ford, Volvo, Jaguar.
Few are based here, but most have sizeable chunks of their operations run from different OC cities, with Irvine seeing the highest concentration. The 10 largest automakers here count 3,551 local workers, up 15% from a year ago.
“Southern California, particularly Orange County, is becoming the Western center of the U.S. auto industry,” said Paul Eisenstein, publisher of Detroit-based TheCarConnection.com, an automotive magazine.
There are 10 automakers featured on this year’s list, ranked by employee counts (Ford’s and Toyota’s are estimates).
Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America Inc. leads the pack, with 862 people (a 7% increase from last year) at the Japanese company’s U.S. headquarters in Cypress. The manufacturer opened its first U.S. headquarters in 1982 in Fountain Valley with 10 employees. In late 1983, Mitsubishi established its Western region, engineering and technical training facilities in Cypress and moved its headquarters to the city in 1989.
Pierre Gagnon, president and chief operating officer of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, said the manufacturer’s presence has “evolved considerably” in OC, from primarily a distribution center to a sophisticated sales and marketing organization. Also, he said Mitsubishi’s Cypress design studio has been “instrumental in developing our production vehicles” such as the Mitsubishi Eclipse.
“Our employment levels are projected to grow over the next five years as our business volumes increase,” Gagnon said. “In addition, we are currently adding dealerships in Orange County.”
Mitsubishi has 566 U.S. authorized dealers, five in OC.
Meanwhile, Hyundai Motor America Inc. and sister company Kia Motors America took the No. 2 slot with a total of 750 employees. Hyundai has 475 people (a 50% jump from last year) and Kia counted 275, a 26% increase from a year ago.
Hyundai spokesman Chris Hosford said Hyundai plans to grow carefully here.
“We have done very well. Our sales were up 49% for the 2000 calendar year in the U.S.,” Hosford said. “With sales increases like that, we do need some more staff people.”
Consequently, Hosfrod said, Hyundai is looking for another location for its in-house design studio, which will give the sales side more room.
The company is scouting undisclosed locations in OC, and plans to open a new facility with Kia, which does not have a design studio in the U.S.
“It will stay in OC,” Hosford said. “We’re very happy in Orange County.”
Geno Effler, director of public relations for Kia, said his company looks forward to design opportunities.
“If we want to stay on the edge of product development and design then it’s going to be important to have a foothold in the U.S.,” he said.
Effler said Kia has grown tremendously from 1993 when it opened in Irvine with 30 employees, but he said he doesn’t anticipate much more growth in terms of staffing.
“It will be much more moderate now than it has been in recent years,” Effler said of Kia’s growth here. “We’re growing up as a car company.”
No. 3 Mazda North American Operations saw a 2% increase in employees to 496, and has 706 authorized dealers in the U.S., four in OC.
Mazda, one of the first companies to move into the Irvine Spectrum, sits just across the way from Ford Motor Co.’s new Premier Automotive Group building.
Jay Amestoy, vice president of Mazda North American Operations, said the auto industry landscape has changed dramatically since Mazda moved to Irvine in 1988.
Not only is OC a business-friendly, but there’s a first-rate talent pool to draw from, Amestoy said. Mazda works with many automotive manufacturers in Southern California that make after-market products because, he said, “They’re on the leading edge of trends.”
Mazda hasn’t grown much in terms of employees over the years, but Amestoy said, “we’re clearly a lot more active (in the community) now,” doing work with several nonprofit organizations, including the Surfrider Foundation.
Ford Motor muscled its way to No. 4, with an estimated 458 employees, a number that is expected to grow to about 700 or more in the coming months as the rest of its Premier group comes West and settles in at its new Irvine digs. The Dearborn, Mich.-based company made headlines when it moved the headquarters of its Lincoln Mercury unit, which employs about 270 people, to Irvine in 1998.
It made news again with the announcement that its Premier Automotive Group will be based in a new high-rise building just off the San Diego (I-405) freeway. The group consists of Lincoln Mercury, Volvo Cars of North America, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover North America.
In other news, the group recently announced that it plans to open a new design center in its Irvine office by the end of the year, according to Jaguar spokesman Simon Sproule. All of Ford’s brands will use the space for work on concept cars and mainstream production vehicles, he added.
No other details about the design center were disclosed.
Meanwhile, No. 5 Toyota Motor Corp., based in Torrance, employs an estimated 404 people in OC throughout several of its divisions, including its design center (Calty Design Research Inc. in Newport Beach) and Toyota Racing Development.
The luxury division of Toyota Motor Sales USA, Lexus Western Area, has about 50 employees in Irvine.
Calty, which employs about 49 people, was the first Toyota division to come to OC and one of Southern California’s first major design studios. It was established in 1973 in El Segundo and moved to Newport Beach in 1978. The studio now resides in an 85,000-square-foot building in Newport completed in 1991.
Through the years, Toyota has introduced numerous designs developed at the Calty studio, including the 1978 and 1990 Celicas, the 1992 Lexus SC400, the 1997 Corolla and 1999 Camry Solara coupe.
Calty’s latest work is the new XYR sports coupe, a lightweight high-performance concept vehicle unveiled at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit.
No. 6 America Suzuki Corp., which has 330 employees, 3% more than last year, has its U.S. headquarters in Brea. The parent company Suzuki Motor Corp. is based in Hamamatsu, Japan.
American Suzuki has 418 authorized dealers, three in Orange County.
Suzuki first came to Southern California, specifically Santa Fe Springs, in 1963 with its motorcycles. In 1985, after broadening its product range, the company moved its headquarters to Brea, making it one of the first Japanese manufacturers to get a foothold in OC.
Meanwhile, No. 7 Nissan North America Inc., which has 133 employees, operates a sales and marketing, parts and services and parts distribution facility from its Costa Mesa office. Nissan has 1,100 U.S. authorized dealers, eight in Orange County.
The last three companies on the list, No. 8 DaimlerChrysler AG, No. 9 Isuzu America Acceptance Corp. and No. 10 Porsche Engineering Services, have smaller offices in OC.
DaimlerChrysler, with 60 employees, operates its LA Zone office and West Coast business center from a high-rise building in Irvine. Isuzu, which has a staff of 30, provides finance and lease options from its Buena Park facility, and Porsche keeps things very low profile in its Huntington Beach office, where it provides hush-hush design services to the automotive and industrial design markets. n
