It’s estimated that one in five full-sized pickup trucks in 2008 was sold in Texas. Not just in the United States, but everywhere.

So it’s no surprise that Toyota announced in August 2009 that its San Antonio manufacturing facility would begin producing Tacoma pickups in spring 2010. The announcement for the San Antonio plant, whose nearly 2,000 employees began rolling trucks off the assembly line in November 2006, is one of the state’s long string of automotive manufacturing success stories.

General Motors has been producing automobiles in Arlington since 1954. In June 2004, GM celebrated the plant’s 50th anniversary by announcing a $160 million expansion and renovation of the facility. Between 1996 and 2006, GM invested $910 million investment in the Arlington plant.

Today, the Arlington facility, which employs nearly 600 workers, is GM’s only producer of full-size sport utility vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Suburban and the Cadillac Escalade.

In December 2008, Texas announced that Illinois-based Caterpillar would relocate one of its primary global manufacturing facilities to 1 million-square-foot facility in Seguin, creating some 1,700 jobs and generating more than $170 million in capital investment.

That news followed BAE Systems’ decision in February 2008 to open a 33,000-square-foot facility in Austin to build cage armor kits for Army vehicles, creating 30 new jobs to fulfill $34 million in orders. In March 2010, the company was awarded a $45 million contract to provide heat-sensing cameras for military reconnaissance vehicles.