North Las Vegas has big plans for electric car factory — and big task ahead in landing one

By Kyle Roerink

Wednesday, July 22, 2015 | 2 a.m.

North Las Vegas has a grand vision for its economic future.

The economically strapped city foresees an electric car manufacturer bringing thousands of jobs and spurring billions in economic development.

Its problem, for now, is persuading the rest of the state to help out.

The city, plagued by the fallout from the financial crisis, is one of four finalists to house the factory of Faraday Future — a largely unknown electric car maker that plans to bring a vehicle to market in 2017.

Faraday has been in discussions with the Governor’s Office of Economic Development to determine its eligibility for state tax incentives and with North Las Vegas about locating an assembly line at the currently empty 18,000-acre Apex Industrial Park — a development center that the town compares to the home of Tesla’s battery factory at the Tahoe Reno Industrial Center. North Las Vegas officials hope that a Southern Nevada factory would provide a big economic boost.

A study commissioned by North Las Vegas attempts to estimate Faraday’s potential impact. (The Governor’s Office of Economic Development is also expected to release a study of its own in the coming weeks.)

In the city-commissioned report, Robert Lang, the director of Brookings Mountain West, estimates that Faraday could bring 4,000 jobs with average wages of $50,896.

The study estimates that the overall impact, including ancillary jobs, could boost state and local tax revenues by $81 million annually between now and 2020.

Ryann Juden, chief of staff to North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, said the Apex facility was the natural location for the factory. “Nowhere else in the region could house this project,” he said.

The city has also prepared the site for a potential client by helping to pass bills in the Legislature that will create Apex’s utility infrastructure for gas and water.

Despite the rosy projections, it is not clear that Faraday can replicate Tesla’s successes.

The company has a scant public record. Though it has hired designers and engineers from companies like Tesla and BMW, it has yet to publicly disclose a CEO or release specifications for its vehicle, leading some observers, like Motor Trend, to question whether the company is promising "vaporware."

Also a problem for North Las Vegas is its ability to offer the company a similar package of incentives to the $1.1 billion in tax abatements and $195 million in tax credits that lured Tesla to Northern Nevada. Under the law, the money used as economic incentives for Tesla could not be made available to Faraday, nor is there any legal guarantee that a similar package would be extended.

A new tax deal would require the governor to call a special session of the Legislature — a move that his office has shown no public interest in doing as of yet. The office declined to comment on the story.

But some Southern Nevada lawmakers are saying they would support a special session.

Sen. Tick Segerblom, a Las Vegas Democrat who voted in favor of the Tesla deal, said he “would be there in a heartbeat.”

Assemblyman Erv Nelson, a Republican from Las Vegas, said he’s open to the idea “if it’s in the best interest of the state.” He went on to add, “A lot has been going to the north lately.”