Tesla buys German firm to enhance battery manufacturing expertise

Tesla is back in the limelight after announcing plans to buy Grohmann Engineering GmbH, a German engineering firm that develops automated manufacturing systems for batteries.

Grohmann was instrumental in getting Daimler and BMW build their production facilities for electric car batteries, which is why Tesla believes it will help them meet their target to expand production considerably. At the moment Tesla makes 80,000 cars a year, and expects to bump it up to 500,000 vehicles in 2018.  

"To date, we have increased the production rate at our Fremont Factory by 400 per cent in four years, and we expect this acquisition to accelerate that growth rate," Tesla said in a blogpost.

Tesla plans to complete the deal in the first half of 2017 as the acquisition needs to be approved by the German regulatory authorities. Post this, the new company called ‘Tesla Grohmann Automation’ will work out of Pruem (near the German border with Netherlands and Luxembourg), and tweak Tesla’s automated manufacturing system. 

Tesla also believes this deal will add over 1,000 jobs in Germany over the next two years.