Tesla reviving defunct auto plant
When the General Motors-Toyota auto plant in Fremont, Calif., shut down in April, many pronounced it dead -- a triple victim of the recession, sliding auto sales and GM’s bankruptcy.
But the former New United Motor Manufacturing Inc. facility, or NUMMI, is about to come to life. Electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc., which surprised many when it said it would buy the plant in May, officially takes ownership Friday.
Many Tesla employees already call the plant the Tesla Factory. Forty people regularly work out of a Tesla office set up on the parking lot, taking breaks under three red patio umbrellas similar to those at the company’s Palo Alto headquarters. The various “shops,” from body framing to paint, are being designed, and detailed diagrams and timelines paper the walls of hallways and conference rooms.
“I’ve been through a plant closure before, and it’s heartbreaking,” said Gilbert Passin, Tesla’s vice president of manufacturing, as he strode through the cavernous auto plant in safety glasses and a red hard hat emblazoned with Tesla’s logo. “To be able to give a second life to this facility and some of the people here -- it’s thrilling for us to be in this position.”
Tesla will use the Fremont factory to manufacture its Model S sedan. The all-electric car will seat five adults and have a battery range of up to 300 miles. Nearly 3,000 people have put down deposits to reserve the car. Tesla has promised that deliveries of the Model S will begin in 2012, an ambitious timeline that some say Tesla will be hard-pressed to meet.
“We know what we want to do. It’s just a matter of getting it done,” said Passin, who does not appear to be daunted by the work ahead of him. “That’s the thrill. We’ll do whatever it takes to make it happen: Work 24/7, or 25/8 if need be.”
Tesla has 800 employees worldwide and is recruiting for a variety of positions as it ramps up operations to produce the Model S. The head count is expected to surpass 1,000 by year’s end, and Chief Executive Elon Musk has said Tesla could have 2,000 employees within the next few years.
Interest in Tesla from job seekers skyrocketed after its successful initial public stock offering this summer, and the company is fielding 2,000 to 3,000 resumes a month from former NUMMI workers, eager college graduates and seasoned veterans of Silicon Valley’s top technology companies.
“We hire professional athletes, in a sense,” said Arnnon Geshuri, Tesla’s vice president for human resources. “We want people who can do multiple things, who are good at working in teams and collaborating. We’re looking for excellence, drive and ambition. That’s the common DNA.”
Geshuri led staffing at Google Inc. from 2004 to 2009, when Google seemed to double in size every quarter, and was an organizational effectiveness consultant for NUMMI in the early 1990s.
“The Tesla culture is very similar to the Google culture in 2004,” said Geshuri, who has 30 people working with him on recruiting. “We’ve emerged from our IPO, we’re a real player in the space, and people are excited to be a part of it.”
Tesla has hired about 30 former NUMMI employees so far but expects to hire several more. Open houses and job fairs are planned at the Fremont factory later this year. Musk has said Tesla is “neutral” on the subject of workers forming a union.
Sean Coyne, who worked at NUMMI for three years, joined Tesla in March as a paint process engineer. That means he’ll be responsible for the paint quality on the Model S.
“I really wanted to work for Tesla and be part of the revolution in the auto industry,” Coyne said. “Tesla is a disruptive company -- they are willing to challenge the status quo.”
NUMMI opened in 1984 as an innovative joint venture between Toyota and GM.
In May, Tesla and Toyota sent shock waves through the auto industry when they announced that Toyota was investing in Tesla and Tesla, in turn, was buying the NUMMI plant.
Tesla bought NUMMI for $42 million, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and later spent $15 million more to buy some manufacturing equipment and spare parts from NUMMI.
It took weeks to inventory the plant; small paper signs that say “Tesla purchased assets” are taped to certain pieces of manufacturing equipment.
Jeffrey Liker, a Toyota expert and industrial engineering professor at the University of Michigan, says the fact that a start-up like Tesla put a Toyota veteran like Passin in charge of manufacturing gives Tesla a running start because Toyota is known for having the best production system in the world.
It helps that Tesla is planning to produce just 20,000 Model S cars a year -- a low volume that should allow the carmaker to focus on quality.
“It should be very easy for Tesla to make Fremont into a showcase, model plant,” Liker said. “And they can build the culture the way they want from the beginning.”
Hull writes for the San Jose Mercury News/McClatchy.
