Tesla Won't Save NUMMI

Edward Niedermeyer
by Edward Niedermeyer

As much as Californians would like to see jobs at NUMMI saved by their homegrown automaker Tesla, the deal isn’t going to happen. For fairly obvious reasons. “We need about 500,000 square feet for our plant,” Tesla’s Rachel Konrad tells Automotive News [sub]. “NUMMI is 5 million.” Thanks to Your Shitty Economy, the EV automaker has plenty of plants to choose from. “The auto industry isn’t the only segment of the California economy that has been struggling,” says Konrad. “We have a lot of mothballed plants to choose from. There are some aerospace and chip factories around here that have closed.” Tesla has just announced that it will build powertrains for its Model S sedan at the Stanford Research Park in Palo Alto, CA. Model S production is likely to take place somewhere in Southern California.

Edward Niedermeyer
Edward Niedermeyer

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  • Rnc Rnc on Aug 19, 2009

    It seems that even if Tesla doesn't make it as a car manufacturing company that they have a bright future as a powertrain supplier and possibly an outsource manufacturer of premium (i.e., mercedes) electric cars. They've made it furthur than anyone would have ever imagined they would.

  • 97escort 97escort on Aug 19, 2009

    More Teslas in drag: http://peakoilgarage.com/

  • Askmrlee Askmrlee on May 21, 2010

    WRONG! Maybe not all of NUMMI is saved, but Tesla and Toyota are in.

  • Mantizoid Mantizoid on Jun 13, 2010

    People love to "offer the opposing view", be buzz-kills, whatever. While trying to look profound, it sometimes backfires however. Looks as tho the author was wrong on every count on this one. Welcome, Tesla Factory to the former NUMMI Plant! See you in 2012! http://www.teslafactory.com

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