Faraday deal beats Tesla giveaway

Dickens one minute, Hanna-Barbera the next, Thursday morning found a giddy Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval waxing downright literary.

Just seconds into his official announcement that shooting-star electric car company Faraday Future had picked the Apex industrial site for its $1 billion manufacturing facility, Sandoval reminded those assembled in the lobby of the Sawyer Building that Nevada had climbed out of the depths an economic recession that brought with it high rates of unemployment, foreclosure, bankruptcy and budget deficit.

"I will tell you candidly, for most Nevadans, it is what Charles Dickens would have called 'the worst of times,' " Sandoval said. "This morning as we gather here, the story is a very different one."

With an improved economy and jobs picture, and a redoubled effort to diversify the state's economy and pump record dollars into public education, people began to sit up and take notice. Enter Tesla Motors and now Faraday Future.

"What Faraday calls a glimpse of the future will unfold right here in Southern Nevada," Sandoval said, entering full advertising mode. "... Faraday Future is an electric car company. But it is also much more. The company's vision is smart and seamless connectivity to the outside world from within the vehicle itself. You know, this is sort of what we dreamed about when we were kids. You know, 'The Jetsons' and all that. And now it's going to be a reality, a reality brought into being right here in the Silver State."

And Gov. Sandoval was generous in his praise of not only state economic development director Steve Hill, but of North Las Vegas Mayor John Lee, Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, former legislator-turned-Commissioner Marilyn Kirkpatrick, and many others. There was no shortage of back slapping Thursday, but then it was a morning historians may one day remember as a turning point for the state.

To no one's surprise, the deal is great for Faraday and its future and North Las Vegas and its Apex industrial reservation. (Apex land owners may at last own the gold mine they've long envisioned.) If all goes according to plan, Southern Nevadans, too, will benefit from the government largesse — and not just with additional jobs.

Tax purists and some of the state's hard-core conservatives have been brushing up their talking points for weeks, but they'd better be ready to stretch their vocal chords. This deal is an improvement over the great Tesla battery factory giveaway and has a much greater upside should Faraday emerge an affordable electric car ready for mass production.

Pending the outcome of next week's Special Session of the Legislature, Faraday will receive handsome sales, property, personal, and business tax abatements. It will receive millions in transferable tax credits for each employee it hires — with at least 50 percent of those from Nevada, according to the agreement — workforce training, and millions more for road, rail and other infrastructure improvements on the moribund Apex site.

But jobs will be created, as many as 13,500 direct and indirect, according to lofty official estimates. And the deal could generate as much as $55 billion in economic expansion over 20 years.

"This is a good deal for the state," Sandoval assured skeptics. "It had to be."

Here's one of the most important things that could come from the Faraday Future factory: a new way of looking at the Southern Nevada economy that isn't defined by gaming tourism and construction. If you want a durable economy and an improved quality of education, it pays to broaden the business base.

If you want a diversified economy to grow into the future, you have to go out and get it. Lee, Sandoval, Hill and the rest proved it can be done.

As Faraday officials like to say, "This is the fun part."

For some of us, the real fun will start when Faraday actually produces a product and makes good on its lofty promise.

But, meanwhile, the Governor is right: It does sound like something straight out of "The Jetsons."

— John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. He can be reached at 702-383-0295 or jsmith@reviewjournal.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.