Ironic the Tesla this GM security guard was ticketing might be the most American car on the lot
GM’s Security Department at their Wentzville assembly plant might want to keep abreast on current American-made cars because they have serious egg on their face. According to a parking violation ticket doled out by GM Security (on GM property) posted on the “Useless, Unsuccessful and/or Unpopular Signage” Facebook group earlier yesterday (June 24, 2021) a Tesla Model 3 was given notice for being “Foreign in a domestic lot.”
The posting couldn’t have come at a better time because on the same day of the violation, Cars.com released their “American-Made index” and ranked Tesla Motors as the most “American-made” car company of 2021, snagging first and second place.
Check out the ticket below and a screenshot of the rankings.
While GM has over 118 facilities in the United States, they only have 11 assembly plants. Wentzville, MO is home to “GM Wentzville assembly,” a 3.7 million square foot facility with over 4,500 employees tasked to build Full size vans (Chevrolet Express/GMC Savana) and Mid-size trucks (Chevrolet Colorado/GMC Canyon.)
Like a lot of car plants in the United States, they have strict and slightly confusing parking rules partly set by their respective companies and local UAW unions. UAW Local 2250 runs “things” around Wentzville and presumably had a heavy hand setting the parking rules.
While we don’t know specifics, we can infer GM, Ford, and Chevrolet vehicles are given priority, with spaces bunched closest to the entrance and around the perimeter near the road while foreign (or import) cars are relegated to the outer-most spaces, away from passing cars views.
Here’s a bird’s-eye view of all the parking lots in Wentzville. Spots in red are definitely domestic lots with spaces in orange as my guess where those other foreign cars are supposed to park.
And here are screenshots off Google Maps with closeups of these supposed “domestic lots.”
These parking rules are supposed to breed brand loyalty, solidarity to the local union, and a united front for visitors, but I think this stifles the transportation choices of its employees, narrows their creativity (living in this GM bubble) and can alienate workers who have no choice but to buy something like a Toyota Camry.
Ironically, the Tesla this security guard punished is, depending on the year, probably more domestic than most cars in the domestic lot and even compared to the cars coming out of their facilities.
Here are the window stickers for a new Chevrolet Colorado and a Tesla Model Y. While both cars have parts from Mexico, the Tesla has 10 percent more parts from the United States. That American-made percentage is even higher among newer made Teslas.
While Elon Musk might seem like some evil Euro villain with his foreign electric cars, Tesla is as American as it gets. Tesla’s first car, the Roadster, was engineered and manufactured in Menlo Park, California. The majority of Teslas built today are made in Fremont, California, the heart of Silicon Valley.
It’s a hard pill to swallow for a lot of Big 3 diehards but Teslas belong in these so called “domestic only” parking lots.
