Alabama should be celebrating a championship of a different kind today, as the state is expected to announce the addition of a fourth vehicle manufacturing plant to an already growing automotive sector.

Yesterday's news that Toyota and Mazda will locate their coveted $1.6 billion factory in Huntsville at a Limestone County megasite was the end of a six-month process where the two corporations sifted through the resumes of 11 states for the right fit.

An official announcement is expected today, according to multiple sources. Officials with the companies, the State of Alabama, or the City of Huntsville, have declined to comment.

The two companies join Mercedes-Benz, Honda and Hyundai as Alabama's auto producers. Hyundai was the latest addition to the group, announcing in 2002.

Finding a home

Toyota and Mazda first revealed their plans in August for the plant, which is projected to be operational by 2021. Toyota will build the Corolla there, while Mazda will produce crossovers. The project is expected to employ 4,000. When Mercedes-Benz announced it was coming to Alabama 25 years ago, the company projected 1,500 jobs at the start. Nearly 21 years after it began production, it now employs 3,700.

In addition, the plant could potentially add additional investments as the two companies, like other auto giants, continue to navigate the demands of tighter emissions standards and technological innovations like autonomous vehicles.

How did Alabama do it?

Several factors may have been the difference.

Alan Baum, an independent auto analyst with Baum and Associates of West Bloomfield, Mich., named two – location and proximity to an existing base of auto suppliers. Published reports in North Carolina said a lack of an existing supply chain was a reason the state's bid failed.

Currently, Alabama has 57,000 residents employed in the auto industry, with 25,000 jobs in the automotive supplier chains among more than 160 companies. Exports of Alabama-made vehicles and parts totaled $9 billion in 2016.

Huntsville also lies close to existing auto suppliers in Tennessee, 21 miles from Toyota's engine plant which is currently undergoing a $106 million expansion, and not far from the company's plant in Mississippi.

"And Huntsville has a reputation for a technical workforce historically and in the present," Baum said.

The area targeted for the plant is a 1,252-acre tract of farmland in Limestone County's Greenbrier community which is part of Huntsville.

The site, off Powell Road and Greenbrier Road, was passed over by Volkswagen in 2008 in favor of Chattanooga. Since then, it has been certified as a TVA Megasite, ready to "plug and play."

The site is only a short drive from Polaris and the Target Distribution Center off Interstate 565, three miles from I-565, six miles from I-65 and within 10 miles of the Tennessee River.

One concern, Baum said, might be distribution of the state's available workforce, with unemployment at a historic low in Alabama. But last year, the head of Mercedes-Benz's Tuscaloosa plant, Jason Hoff, observed that Alabama's existing auto plants are situated in different sectors of the state that don't allow for overlapping.

Mercedes-Benz occupies the west, Honda the east, with Hyundai in the south. In the north is the Toyota engine plant. This has allowed the plants to operate relatively free of any workforce overlaps and enjoy a good working relationship among each other, he said.

Political concerns

Along the way, analysts, including Baum, noted that Toyota and Mazda might decide to locate in North Carolina, which has long sought an auto manufacturing plant. It had the advantage, they reasoned, because the companies might see it as a way securing more political clout through the state's Congressional delegation.

There were also concerns during Alabama's contentious U.S. Senate campaign that the state might lose out on the factory if former Chief Justice Roy Moore had won. The eventual victor, Doug Jones, said allegations of sexual misconduct regarding Moore might cause the economic prize to land elsewhere.

Baum, however, said the decision may have come down to simple dollars and cents.

"This is done, basically, with a series of spread sheets," he said. "It's an economic decision. There's all sorts of things: cost of land, power, availability of training, where are you physically in the marketplace, where are vehicles going. The icing on the cake is the less quantifiable issues, like the incentives."

It's unclear what incentives Alabama may have had to offer. Reports had Toyota and Mazda lobbying for at least $1 billion. When Hyundai came to Alabama in 2002, the incentive package was $234 million. That included $82 million in corporate income tax abatements over 20 years, $75 million for worker training, $118.5 million for a job training center and training programs.

'Big stuff'

When Toyota and Mazda made their initial announcement last August, President Trump praised the decision via Twitter, calling it "a great investment in American manufacturing!" Later, during a trip to Japan, he asked to shake the hands of the executives of the two companies, calling their decision "big stuff."

But Baum said one concern for the two companies may be how ongoing renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement might affect their joint venture. Auto sales in the U.S. declined last year, and sales of the Corolla fell 14 percent as buyers migrated more to SUVs. Toyota last year announced a change in its plan to make Corollas at a plant in Guanajuato, Mexico, which is now under construction. The company says it will instead produce Tacoma pickups there.

Baum said one model of how companies may handle any NAFTA fallout might be found overseas, where other companies are dealing with the ramifications of the United Kingdom's "Brexit" from the European Union. Nissan, for example, reportedly reached a bargain with the government that it would not incur any added costs.

"Of course, (Toyota and Mazda) already made the decision to come based on a variety of factors," Baum said. "But you might get these two companies going forward saying that if there are any changes to NAFTA, this is what we want."

Time will tell, as it will eventually reveal the path Alabama took to edge out North Carolina, the same state which had courted Mercedes-Benz, Alabama's first auto partner, back in 1993. The news was taken hard in some sectors there.

The Greensboro (N.C.) News and Record lamented that the state's 1,900-acre Greensboro-Randolph megasite — dubbed by one consultant "the prettiest piece of dirt I've ever seen"— was rejected.

"Today, in fact, the legislature was supposed to begin drafting the package that would seal the deal," the paper wrote. "But they won't get the chance."