Electric vehicle company Noodoe EV is moving its U.S. headquarters from Irvine, California, to Houston, the latest in a stampede of corporate relocations to the state.
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The Taiwanese company, which makes EV charging products, will move to 9896 Bissonnet St. as it seeks to keep up with rising demand for charging stations.
"Logistically, we need our U.S. headquarters to be centrally located. Houston has the port and airport capacity we need to efficiently meet the unprecedented demand for EV charging stations," CEO Jennifer Chang said in a release. "Houston has long been the Energy Capital of the World, mostly because of oil and gas extraction. Noodoe will help the city continue its energy legacy, only this time without fossil fuels."
The Irvine office will remain open for West Coast operations. The company moved to Irvine in 2020 from its previous home in Walnut, California, in Los Angeles County, citing the city's proximity to the technology industry, The Orange County Register reported at the time. Its Irvine operation included a 5K SF office and a warehouse.
No details have been released about the size of Noodoe's Houston headquarters.
Noodoe’s move to Texas comes amid a flurry of interest in the state from the EV industry, kicked off by Tesla’s corporate relocation to Austin last year. Tesla's billion-dollar gigafactory makes up almost half of Austin's current industrial space under construction, according to a 2021 fourth-quarter report from NAI Partners.
More recently, EV startup company Rivian Automotive considered Fort Worth for a $5B assembly factory before ultimately opting for Georgia, but other competitors in the space, like Lucid Motors, are ramping up retail footprints in Houston and Dallas.
The move also marks the latest in an exodus of California companies seeking new corporate homes in Texas. A statewide relocation tracker maintained by business recruitment organization Y Texas lists 65 companies relocating to Texas in 2021, 26 of them making the move from the Golden to the Lone Star State.
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