You don’t know much about the car business, do you? Every major automotive manufacturer, foreign and domestic, has a design studio in California and has for years.
Toyota was the first, to my knowledge, with their Calty facility in Newport Beach. Nissan has theirs in La Jolla. Mercedes, Mazda and Hyundai/Kia have studios in Irvine. Honda R&D Americas is in Pasadena, Mitsubishi’s is in Cypress, BMW owns Designworks in Newberry Park, while VW/Audi’s is in Santa Monica.
Ford has a center in Irvine, Chrysler has one in Carlsbad, and GM’s is in North Hollywood.
RE: Design studios in California. If you were an automobile designer, where would you rather live, Detroit or Southern California (home of the little old lady from Pasadena).