THis is that high performance electric car company.

http://www.teslamotors.com/



Tesla Motors mass firings

Jan 11 2008 3:28PM


Tesla Motors, the luxury electric car with 6800 cells in its propulsion battery has just conducted a mass firing. They say it is not layoffs, they say it is cleaning house. There are 39 openings on the jobs part of their website. Being a former auto engineer and after following Indian Motorcycle and others, I can assure you that designing and building automotive vehicles is far tougher than most people realize. I remember my interview and GMC Truck and Coach decades ago. We went into the test department and there was a truck cab with an air cylinder that was opening and then slamming closed a door. As a 17-year-old co-op student applicant, I thought this was silly, to have this big complicated test just to open and close a door. The engineer leading me around smiled and said ” Well, how else will we know how many times we can use the door before it breaks?” Indeed. Hanging out with engineers can be frustrating since they think that design is the end-all and be-all of a company. As far as total effort in a medium or especially in a high volume application, manufacturing is far tougher, and that is why test is so important. Looks like manufacturing cars, electric or otherwise is a lot harder than all the whiz-kids thought.

 

Damn, I wish I lived close to that company as I will be needing a new job here soon. I would love to work for a company like this.