Rice Checks: A third-generation dealer powers her family business as Toyota presses the pedal to the metal in North Carolina.

• Author: Mitchell, Tucker

Toyota Motor's plan to produce electric batteries near Greensboro isn't the first time that the Gate City has played an important role in the Japanese automaker's history. The Rice family, which had a pioneering hand in popularizing the company's Corolla sedans in the Southeast in the 1960s, is poised to benefit from ripple effects of Toyota's Tar Heel expansion.

Mary Rice, the third-generation member of her family to run Rice Toyota, is planning to double the dealership's physical plant in the next few years. A key reason is the $3.8 billion campus under construction near Liberty in northeastern Randolph County, just 20 minutes from Rice Toyota's Battleground Avenue site in Greensboro.

Toyota's generous employee purchase benefits will create an influx of new Toyota drivers alter the plant opens in 2025, she says. "That's 5,000 potential new customers. It's a phenomenon all the time around Toyota plants."

While there are four Toyota dealerships within a similar distance of the pending factory, Rice says hers is the closest. The 2,000-plus employees and their families--which is how she gets to 5,000 new customers--are likely to live across the region.

Rice, 43, has been at Rice Toyota for a decade now, including two years as dealer principal, industry jargon for the boss. It remains one of the highest-volume Toyota dealers in the Southeast with annual revenue of $150 million, comparable to prepandemic days. The business employs about 170 people.

She's likely to be there a while. Rice says she is smitten with the car business, even as it faces an increasingly turbulent automotive sales environment. The dealership industry has faced chaos in recent years thanks to a global pandemic, the rise of electric vehicles, unprecedented supply chain problems that have curbed production, and a new generation of buyers who rely on cellphones to make purchases. For now, many dealers are benefiting from record prices for cars and trucks and greater profit from servicing cars as owners hold on to their vehicles for longer periods. But that near-term windfall could be swallowed up by the industry upheaval that has some auto dealers shaking. Rice sounds unfazed.

"I'm so ready for all this," she says. "This is such an exciting time and this is such an interesting business, what with all the changes. It just makes me want to get up and get started in the morning."

Family tradition

Rice is always in the minority when auto dealers gather because she's female; a small fraction of the 16,700 U.S. auto...