Tesla is starting to hire leadership positions for its first full-scale battery cell factory at Gigafactory Berlin in Germany.
At its ‘Battery Day‘ earlier this year, Tesla unveiled its own battery cell, the Tesla 4680, and explained its plan to produce its own battery cells for the first time.
Tesla is currently ramping up production at its pilot production line in Fremont.
As we previously reported, Tesla has designed the entire production system called Roadrunner in-house and it is currently using the production line to improve on its machinery with the goal to deploy a full-scale factory using the production system.
Tesla is believed to be planning to deploy these full-scale battery cell factories at its current Gigafactory projects in Berlin, Texas, and China.
Based on how construction has been progressing, it looks like the battery factory in Berlin is going to be the first one ready.
Now Tesla is looking to hire people to lead the battery cell manufacturing effort in Berlin.
Drew Baglino, SVP of Powertrain and Energy Engineering at Tesla and the defacto CTO of the company since JB Straubel left, posted on LinkedIn about the new hiring effort:
“Accelerate the transition to sustainable energy by joining Tesla’s cell manufacturing effort in Berlin, recruiting for leadership positions now.”
Here are the three roles that Tesla is looking to fill right now:
- Cell Manufacturing Operational Leader
- Cell Shop Senior Leader
- Manufacturing Engineering Manager, Cells
As we recently reported, CEO Elon Musk went to Tesla Gigafactory Berlin to boost the hiring effort and even interviewed candidates personally.
However, he was specifically hiring for his “25 guns” team, a 25-person Tesla engineering task force to fix problems at Gigafactory Berlin.
Tesla hasn’t provided a clear timeline for the start of battery production at Gigafactory Berlin, but it is expected to start around the same time as vehicle production, which they officially aim to achieve in July 2021. That’s because the automaker plans to use its new structural battery pack technology to produce the Model Y in Berlin and that requires the new 4680 battery cells.
However, Tesla said that it will support the production of the European Model Y with battery cell production at its pilot production facility.
While it’s officially only a pilot production facility to tune its battery cell manufacturing system for bigger factories, like the one in Berlin, Tesla still aims to have an annual production capacity of 10 GWh at the facility.
That’s more than most battery factories can produce today and should be very useful early in the production ramp of Tesla’s battery cells and Model Y in Berlin.
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Author: Fred Lambert
Source: Electrek
