For more than 25 years, I have worked in the marketing and promotion of the automobile industry. I have watched plants open, brands reinvent themselves and communities transformed by manufacturing.
Few transformations compare with what has happened in Alabama.
Thirty years ago, Alabama was barely on America’s automotive map. Today, Mercedes-Benz, Honda, Hyundai, Mazda and Toyota operate major assembly plants here. Alabama has capacity to produce roughly 1.3 million vehicles annually, supports more than 53,000 direct automotive jobs, ranks among America’s top five vehicle-producing states and is No. 2 nationally in automotive exports.
That is an extraordinary accomplishment built with concerted efforts by state and local officials all around Alabama for several generations.
But Alabama’s next challenge isn’t simply celebrating what has already been built. It is deciding what comes next.
The next administration should treat it as something bigger: a strategic advantage in America’s industrial competition with China.
If Tommy Tuberville is successful in becoming governor, the four years beginning in 2027 could provide the springboard for Alabama’s next 30.
Tuberville has already made domestic manufacturing and economic competition with China central issues. In 2026, he co-sponsored legislation seeking to prohibit Chinese-manufactured connected vehicles and Chinese-controlled vehicle technology from the American market. Manufacture Alabama, in endorsing his gubernatorial candidacy, specifically cited his focus on the workforce, infrastructure and energy manufacturers need to expand.
That combination matters.
Because the automobile of 2056 will be about far more than sheet metal and assembly lines.
It will be about semiconductors, batteries, artificial intelligence, robotics, advanced materials, software, data, critical minerals and—perhaps most importantly—energy.
Alabama should make an audacious bet: build the electricity and infrastructure today that tomorrow’s manufacturers will require.
Then build the entire automotive ecosystem that our current auto plants are parts of.
Bring battery technology here. Semiconductor suppliers. Robotics companies. Advanced component manufacturing. Research centers. Automotive AI. Materials processing. Next generation power generation.
Make Alabama the place where a manufacturer can design it, power it, build it and export it. And protect that ecosystem from strategic dependence on China.
Mercedes’ story demonstrates what one decision can produce. The company selected Alabama in 1993, began production in 1997 and reached five million Alabama-built vehicles in 2026. Mercedes is now committing another $4 billion to Alabama.
Imagine replicating that effect several times over.
The goal for the next four years shouldn’t simply be another factory announcement. It should be creating conditions that make the next 30 years inevitable.
By 2056, Alabama could occupy a position in America’s automotive economy comparable to the role Detroit played in the 20th century—not by replacing Detroit, but by becoming the center of a new Southern manufacturing corridor built around advanced technology, abundant energy and globally competitive production.
That means the administration taking office in 2027 has an unusual opportunity. The first generation proved Alabama could build cars.
The second built an industry.
The third should build an automotive empire.
And thirty years from now, when America talks about where the future of the automobile is being built, the answer shouldn’t be China.
It should be Alabama.
John Paul Strong is a 25-year veteran of automotive marketing and promotion.
