Tesla reveals employment numbers at Gigafactory Texas that are so incredibly high they make the automaker one of the biggest employers in central Texas, and it’s just the beginning.
Jason Shawhan, Tesla’s director of manufacturing at Giga Texas, revealed the employment numbers in a presentation reported by the Austin Business Journal.
According to the executive, Tesla had over 12,000 employees at Gigafactory Texas by the end of last year.
Now it has already ramped up to over 20,000 employees in the Austin area this year with most of them being located at Gigafactory Texas.
But the wildest claim is that Tesla expects to ramp up to 60,000 employees by the time it has fully ramped up Cybertruck production at Gigafactory Texas.
Tesla is already the second largest corporate employer in central Texas, second only to the popular local grocery chain H-E-B.
This hiring spree to 60,000 employees would put it on top.
Tesla is preparing for the ramp-up in hiring by building a giant parking garage at the location. The automaker will have to greatly increase local infrastructure to support that kind of growth in headcount.
Top comment by Rich
Don't forget TESLA is vertically integrated, (like the big 3 used to be) and build a lot of the components in house. The big three had to jettison their parts organizations to stay financially viable. I was an engineer working in Mexico and Hungary for Hughes Electronics (Delco Electronics folded into Hughes). We were then moved from Hughes to the newly formed Delphi parts div. At that point there were over 100,000 US UAW hourly workers with Delphi. We had maybe 60K workers in all of Mexico. When Delphi ceased to exist after bankruptcy in 2009, the new owners only operated profitable operations, all others were shut down if they could not become profitable (US and Mexico). Within a short amount of time there were 0 (zero) US union hourly employees at Delphi/Aptiv. The Mexico hourly head count is much lower due to up integration in design. Tesla has one computer and a screen to run the car. Legacy ICE plants produce between 100K - 300K units per year. Tesla is moving towards 1,000K units per assembly plant. No legacy plant comes close. I saw the increase in productivity with new ownership with Aptiv (Elliot Management). I have my doubts that the legacy manufacturers can weather the technical disruption from ICE to Electric. Plus the TESLA electrical hardware and software lead will be almost impossible for them to overcome. My plan is to run my old ICE cars until I have to get an EV car. By that time the range will be better than today
While Tesla is known for large factories with extraordinarily high head counts, 60,000 employees would be a whole new level – even for the automaker.
But Giga Texas is unique in the sense that Tesla is trying to build a lot more than just electric vehicles at the plant.
Tesla is also building battery cells and even cathode material at the plant, which are most often manufactured in their own separate factories.
As we previously reported based on supplier information, Tesla plans to produce 375,000 Cybertrucks per year at Giga Texas. By the time Tesla has ramped up to that production capacity, the automaker is also expected to have deployed production for its next-generation vehicles, which should also contribute to the unbelievable employment numbers.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments