The inaugural episode of the Bring It Home podcast is now available.
Bring It Home celebrates the North American manufacturing renaissance, reindustrialization and reshoring taking place across the continent. Co-hosts Craig Fuller, founder and CEO Firecrown Media, and JP Hampstead, strategic analyst at Firecrown, run through the latest headlines about manufacturing investments and interview a special guest each week.
“What is happening right now on the ground in America is tremendous,” Fuller said. “So many new manufacturing and infrastructure jobs are coming into our economy. New announcements by corporations all over the world are investing in the Americas, and this is the show that is celebrating that.”
For the first episode of Bring It Home, Fuller and Hampstead talk to Bill Dunavant, the CEO, chairman, and president of Dunavant Enterprises, based in Memphis, Tennessee. Dunavant Enterprises was at one time the largest raw cotton trader in the world; after exiting the commodities markets, the company focused on its logistics and real estate development businesses. Bill is a sixth-generation Memphian and shared his passion for the city on the show.
The group discussed Memphis as a transportation hub with a story originating at the Mississippi River. Today, Memphis is a junction to five of the six Class I railroads and is a major artery of Interstate 40. It is also home to the second busiest cargo airport in the world.
“We in Memphis, clearly, are America’s supply chain capital,” Dunavant said. “That’s a big statement to make, but when you can reach 95% of global GDP in 72 hours from your city, that’s pretty special. When you can reach 75% of the American population in 48 hours by truck, that’s why we’re America’s distribution capital with companies locating in Memphis. And it’s continuing to grow and continuing to get better and better for Memphis.”
Dunavant explained the significance of Memphis’ water and energy resources to decision makers who chose the region for Ford’s new $5.6 billion BlueOval City project and Tesla’s AI supercomputer.
“Ford BlueOval, in conjunction with SK Battery out of South Korea, is making the biggest investment in American history in an automobile manufacturing plant just outside of Memphis,” Dunavant said. “It’s going to be the next generation of Ford’s new electric truck … Quite frankly, when you look at Ford’s investment of over $6 billion and probably another couple billion of dollars with the manufacturers co-locating with them, you’re looking at an $8 billion investment in Tennessee.”
Coupled with other investments in Tennessee and the $2 billion Cummins and PACCAR truck battery plant that’s being built in northern Mississippi, Dunavan said it all adds up to $18 billion in EV investment in Tennessee alone.
Dunavant said the most recent headline that Memphis is proud of is being selected as the location for Tesla’s XAI supercomputer.
“We were awarded that in June of this year,” Dunavant said. “A lot of work has gone into it and a lot of money has been invested. The fact that Elon Musk is coming to Memphis and building the largest supercomputer in the world – and is already in discussions of doubling that size – we all know that AI is all over the world right now. Clearly, Elon Musk is a gamechanger in everything that he touches … . We are so blessed that he chose Memphis.”
He said that Tesla CEO Elon Musk chose Memphis for three reasons: speed, water and power.
“We have the old Electrolux plant [with] 800,000 square feet on 600 acres that was ready to go,” Dunavant said. “We sit on the greatest aquifer in the world … . We have 100 trillion gallons of water under Memphis, Tennessee, and it’s reestablishing itself every single day. We all, including Chattanooga, have the greatest power supply in the world with TVA [the Tennessee Valley Authority]. We all are so blessed in the region of north Alabama, north Mississippi and Tennessee to have TVA as our federal power source.”
Other headlines discussed in this episode include:
A massive expansion of GLP-1 drug manufacturer Eli Lilly’s facility in Lebanon, Indiana.
President Joe Biden’s administration finalizing increased tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and the key materials that go into building them.
The Bring It Home podcast is currently on Youtube and will soon be available on other podcast platforms.
The post Bring It Home podcast 1st show talks Memphis, Musk and manufacturing appeared first on FreightWaves.
