DE SOTO, U.S. — Rick Walker, mayor of De Soto, Kansas, can barely contain his excitement about the vast U-shaped factory going up on his city’s outskirts. Overhung with cranes and buzzing with over a thousand workers, the plant is being built by Panasonic Energy, a Japanese maker of batteries for electric vehicles and a major supplier to Tesla.
The 1.2-square-kilometer compound, once occupied by a U.S. Army ammunition plant that closed in 1992, will ultimately be a magnet for the local economy, Walker says. “It was a big source of employment for our community,” he recalled. “We had half a dozen gas stations, we had three or four grocery stores, we had several taverns; it was a thriving downtown.”