Whether this region wins EV assembly will not be settled by the size of an incentive package. It will be settled by whether there is a cell supply answer within trucking distance. Across North America, there still is not enough of one.
What the share shift actually says
Between 2012 and 2022 the region went from 6.2% of North American light-vehicle assembly to 10.2%, the largest gain on the continent. Where that share came from changes the story. Canada nearly halved over the same decade, from 15.9% to 8.4%. The Midwest slipped only modestly, from 39.3% to 36.4%.
So the region did not displace ageing Midwestern capacity. It displaced higher-cost northern capacity, and it did so while the U.S. South was also growing, from 23.0% to 26.4%. The competitor is the South, not the Midwest. Both run the same argument: lower operating cost, aggressive state competition, thin union density.
That matters because the nature of the contested projects is changing. The last decade was won on assembly cost. The next one turns on where the cells come from.
A corridor pitch for EV assembly does not close if there is no cell answer inside the radius.
The cell arithmetic
North American cell capacity stood at about 55 GWh a year in 2021. Add up everything announced for 2030 and the total reaches roughly 1,000 GWh, an eighteen-fold increase. That is a great deal of construction, and it is happening.
The problem is what comes after. If EVs reach 80% of light-vehicle sales by 2040, the cells required come to about 1,653 GWh a year. Build everything announced and the shortfall is still roughly 653 GWh, a gap twelve times larger than all of North American capacity in 2021.
| Capacity, 2021 | 55 |
| Announced for 2030 | about 1,000 |
| Required in 2040 (80% EV share) | 1,653 |
| Shortfall in 2040 | about 653 |
Source: Macro Foresight, TMASC report (March 2024), p. 40, published by Bexar County. Data: 2021, with projections to 2040.
There is range in this. A lower EV share shrinks the gap; smaller average packs shrink it further. But a demand shortfall also shrinks the assembly projects themselves, so it is not the good news it first appears to be.
Why cells decide assembly
A finished pack is heavy, bulky, regulated as dangerous goods and expensive to move. The pressure to co-locate cell production with assembly is therefore strong, and the sequence runs one way. The cell plant is decided first and assembly follows it. Not the reverse.
Land one cell plant and a meaningful share of the assembly work follows almost mechanically. Recruitment priority should be set on that single fact.
This is where the region is exposed. A cell plant is decided on firm power, industrial water at volume, and a prepared parcel measured in the hundreds of acres. Those are precisely the three things the 2024 study identified as the region's gaps: grid stability, water, and shovel-ready megasites.
What the scorecard says, and what it does not
On the 2024 study's competitive benchmarking, the region scores 44.2 for EV manufacturing and 41.4 for a battery plant, against 60.1 and 55.9 for the Midwest and 54.4 and 52.2 for the South. Those are the region's two weakest positions of the five investment types assessed.
Its strongest are headquarters relocation at 36.9 and a software technology center at 39.8, where only the Midwest scores higher and by less than a point in each case. The region competes best for the things it is least often pitched for.
The workforce problem underneath it
Employment of computer and mathematical professionals inside the auto industry grew at 9.6% a year between 2012 and 2022, against 3.4% for all other auto employees. The study projects that demand for programmers in the sector could grow by around 40,000 as OEMs (original equipment manufacturers, meaning automakers) scale software-related research and development.
That is not a recruiting problem. It is a supply-of-graduates problem, and it has a lead time closer to fifteen years than five. It is also the criterion that decides the software technology center — the very opportunity the region is otherwise best positioned for.
What follows, depending on where you sit
If you are a supplier: committing EV-specific capital before the cell decision in your radius is almost always early. Committing after one has been announced is usually late. Establish which cell supply your customer is actually counting on before you commit tooling.
If you are an economic development organization: a cell plant is worth more than the assembly plant it unlocks, and it is decided on infrastructure you have to build years ahead of the inquiry. Megasite readiness and firm power are not supporting arguments. They are the pitch.
If you are an OEM: the region's case is strongest where it is least marketed. A regional headquarters or a software center faces a near-tie with the Midwest and beats every other peer region, and neither is gated on cell supply.
Figures are from the 2024 TMASC study commissioned by Bexar County (Accenture Strategy analysis, March 2024) and its underlying sources: Automotive News, S&P Global Mobility, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and INEGI. Production and employment data is 2022 vintage. Interpretation is mine.