French tire maker Michelin is breaking ground on a new North American tire plant that likely will make South Carolina the tire-making capital of the United States by next year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Yesterday, Michelin disclosed it would invest $750 million to build a new factory in Anderson County, S.C., and expand an existing Lexington, S.C., plant to build heavy tires used in the construction and mining industries.

Expanded output from those two plants combined with production gains from two factories now being built in the state by Bridgestone Corp. and Continental AG will move South Carolina past current leader Oklahoma, and well beyond Ohio.

Bridgestone has invested nearly $57 million in upgrades to its Des Moines agricultural tire plant in the past year and plans further multimillion-dollar upgrades to increase production. Click here to read a related Business Record story.

Ohio, once the rubber capital of the world, now ranks as the 11th biggest North American tire producer, with about 24,450 tires produced daily. South Carolina, with daily production of 84,000 tires, today is second only to Oklahoma as the biggest tire producing state or province in North America, according to trade publication Tire Business.

The migration of tire production out of Ohio to Southern states has been spurred by state and local government tax incentives and the states’ right-to-work laws that make union organizing more difficult. Automakers, such as BMW AG and Volkswagen AG, also have set up plants in the South.