Tesla Motors announced this week that it has agreed to buy Grohmann Engineering, a German engineering company, in order to help automate its electric car manufacturing operations.
“Accelerating a sustainable energy future is only possible with high-volume factories. They allow us to manufacture high-quality products with economies of scale, making them more affordable and accessible to the world,” the company said in a press release. “As the machine that builds the machine, our factories are so important that we believe they will ultimately deserve an order of magnitude more attention in engineering than what they produce.”
Tesla has plans to starting building its Model 3 electric car next year, and hopes to build 500,000 cars per year by 2018. The company expects to add more than 1,000 engineering and technician jobs in Germany during that time.
To date, Tesla has increased the production rate at its Fremont Factory by 400 percent in four years, and expects this acquisition to accelerate that growth rate.
While the agreement is contingent upon clearance from regulators, including in Germany, Tesla hopes to have full approval and close the acquisition in early 2017.