Tesla has announced that it will move its powertrain assembly operations to a former Hewlett-Packard facility in Palo Alto.
"Silicon Valley and the Stanford Research Park are synonymous with innovation and entrepreneurship," said Tesla CEO and Product Architect Elon Musk. "It's an ideal place for a new car company trying to rethink many aspects of the traditional automotive business."
Can't argue with Musk on the innovation part, but it's hard to imagine that Tesla couldn't find a cheaper location for an assembly plant. High tech or not, seems like they would be better off moving manufacturing to cheaper locales while the rest of the business operations work out of Silicon Valley.
Tesla did note that it will make a separate announcement regarding a California assembly facility for the Model S sedan.
compliance says:
10:28 AM, 08/18/09
As a former resident of Palo Alto I know first hand how dumb this is. I moved away due to cost of living issues. This is not where you want to set up low wage manufacturing.
redliner says:
11:06 AM, 08/18/09
...well look who is running the company, Musk. Nuff said.
clarkma5 says:
01:00 PM, 08/18/09
Putting a industrial manufacturing facility in the white-collar office parks of Sand Hill and Page Mill is expensive...I mean, I know that Tesla is tied to the south bay area and lower peninsula, but couldn't they have, for instance, located in Santa Clara or something that's cheaper and more geared to this?
ctpax says:
03:06 PM, 08/18/09
at least he didn't move the plant to Mexico or Canada or who knows where else...
estreka says:
03:29 PM, 08/18/09
Compton would have been a much better choice.
cwc1 says:
06:46 PM, 08/18/09
Was that plant and building vacant? If so, I wonder if they got it cheap enough to compensate.
zoomzoomn says:
06:37 AM, 08/20/09
Yawn. Tesla-schmesla.