TEL AVIV, Israel — Around the time General Motors was killing brands, slashing jobs and closing plants as it spiraled toward bankruptcy, its top executives placed a bet on a little-known corner of the automotive world that's now paying dividends.
GM opened a technical center in the Israeli coastal city of Herzliya in 2008, a year before its Chapter 11 reorganization, becoming the first major automaker to secure a foothold in what's become an oasis for mobility startups on a par with Silicon Valley.
"They understood this was the future of the company," Gil Golan, a GM lifer who lobbied for the Advanced Technical Center and now is its executive director, said in an interview. "It was like a baby."