Energy
Tesla is growing its workforce as rival carmakers cut jobs to catch up in the EV race
Tesla has a ton of things in the pipeline that will keep it busy for the foreseeable future — from building Giga Berlin, ramping the production of the Model Y in the US and China, rolling out the upcoming Cybertruck, Semi, and new Roadster, to further improving its core battery technology. In order to achieve these goals, Tesla has been on a hiring spree to acquire talent to boost its current workforce. In contrast, other carmakers have been cutting jobs as they start a difficult transition towards sustainable transportation.
“It’s hard to think of another company that has more exciting product and technology roadmap. So super-fired up about where Tesla will be in the next 10 years. If you look back 10 years from today to 2010, we will produce approximately 1,000 times more cars in 2020 than we produced in 2010… and we have also Solarglass and solar retrofit and Powerwall, Powerpack, all those things too. So where we will be in 10 years, very excited to consider the prospect,” Tesla chief executive and co-founder Elon Musk said during the company’s Q4 2019 earnings call.
Tesla Continues Its Push
Elon Musk has turned himself into a solar salesman and has kicked off 2020 by setting the stage for a Solarglass Roof installation ramp in the United States. Musk has also mentioned bringing the Solarglass Roof to other markets such as China and Europe. Aside from looking for roofers, it is also partnering with homebuilders and other residential industry players. Giga New York, where solar panels and other components are made, is also looking to add more employees to its workforce.
Tesla is also seemingly testing the waters to build Giga Texas, where it can potentially ramp the production of the Cybertruck and help its other facilities scale battery production. Amidst all this, Elon Musk has also announced that he will be hosting an AI hackathon to fish for talents who can potentially help accelerate the rollout of its Full Self-Driving suite.
Across the pond, Tesla is busy trying to prepare an industrial property in Grunheide to begin the construction of Giga Berlin, which is poised to go online next year. This Tesla Gigafactory in Europe aims to produce 10,000 vehicles per week and it will need a 12,000-strong workforce to do that. Giga Berlin is currently looking for people to help them in construction, engineering, manufacturing, and operations.
In China, Giga Shanghai is aiming to ramp production of the locally-made Model 3, while starting its program for the Model Y. Tesla is even looking for designers that would help it produce a new vehicle Tesla for the local market and the rest of the globe. Job openings for Tesla China skyrocketed 118% between October last year to February 2020 and have seen a 376% jump in the past year, according to Thinknum Alternative Data’s report. While the coronavirus outbreak in China slowed down job postings recently, the overall hiring activity of the Palo Alto, California-based carmaker is on the upswing across the globe.
Tesla is undeniably the leader in electric vehicles. Through the years, it has been trying to perfect its manufacturing processes, car software technology, and battery capacity. In fact, a recent Model 3 teardown by Nikkei Business Publications revealed that Tesla could be six years ahead of the competition on the hardware front. On the battery front, Consumer Reports recently validated its advantage over other carmakers, and we’re yet to hear the compelling story that will blow people’s minds Elon Musk promised come Battery Day in April.
Tesla Competitors Trying To Catch Up, But That’s All They Can Do — Try
While Tesla keeps on looking for new hires to help it bring its product and technology roadmap into fruition, other carmakers have been cutting jobs. As legacy automakers try to catch up on the electrification of its fleet, most of them need to lay off workers to free funds that they can use for research and development of technology that can come close to what Tesla has had for years.
Last December 2019, Daimler and Audi announced that it will cut 10,000 jobs as the major shift in vehicle technology happens. Audi is also getting rid of 9,500 jobs to free funds for its electrification efforts. Bloomberg News compiled data that revealed carmakers in Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom are eliminating around 80,000 jobs as they reassess their current workforce in an era of electrification. In China, electric vehicle startup NIO also retrenched about 20% of its workforce. Asian automotive leaders Toyota and Honda have also cut costs to bolster research and development of electric cars and ride-sharing programs.
Tesla has had its own challenges but the company is definitely thriving now, as evidenced by its tangible lead in the EV space. For Q4 2019, Tesla posted revenue amounting to $7.38 billion, beating Wall Street’s estimates. Maintaining profitability, it was able to generate $1.1 billion of free cashflow in 2019. Its stock price also saw a meteoric rise recently propelling its market cap value to $169.16 billion on Feb. 19.
The striking contrast affecting the labor force of Tesla and other carmakers paints the difficult task of traditional automakers who seemed to have been caught flat-footed in a rapidly changing auto industry. Not that these giant car brands do not have the money, but Tesla is just way, way ahead in electrification. With all the activities on the side of Tesla, perhaps legacy carmakers should indeed be frightened.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s $2.9 billion bet: Why Elon Musk is turning to China to build America’s solar future
Tesla looks to bring solar manufacturing to the US, with latest $2.9 billion bet to acquire Chinese solar equipment.
Tesla is reportedly in talks to purchase $2.9 billion worth of solar manufacturing equipment from a group of Chinese suppliers, including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, which is the world’s largest producer of screen-printing equipment used in solar cell production. According to Reuters sources, the equipment is expected to be delivered before autumn and shipped to Texas, where Tesla plans to anchor its next phase of domestic solar production.
The move is a direct extension of a vision Elon Musk has been building for months. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, Musk announced that both Tesla and SpaceX were independently working to establish 100 gigawatts of annual solar manufacturing capacity inside the United States. Days later, on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he made the ambition concrete: “We’re going to work toward getting 100 GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials all the way to finished solar panels.”
Job postings on Tesla’s website reflect that same target, with language explicitly calling for 100 GW of “solar manufacturing from raw materials on American soil before the end of 2028.”
Tesla job listing for Staff Manufacturing Development Engineer, Solar Manufacturing
The urgency behind the latest solar manufacturing target is rooted in a set of rapidly emerging pressures related to AI and Tesla’s own energy business. U.S. power consumption hit its second consecutive record high in 2025 and is projected to climb further through 2026 and 2027, driven largely by the explosion in AI data centers and the broader electrification of transportation. Tesla’s own energy division, which produces the Megapack utility-scale battery storage system, has been growing rapidly, and solar supply is a critical companion component for the business to scale. Musk has argued that solar is not just a clean energy option but the only one that makes economic sense at the scale AI infrastructure demands.
Tesla lands in Texas for latest Megapack production facility
Ironically, the path to domestic solar independence currently runs through China. Sort of.
Despite Tesla’s stated push to localize its supply chain, mirrored recently by the company’s plan for a $4.3 billion LFP battery manufacturing partnership with LG Energy Solution in Michigan, Tesla still relies on China-based suppliers to keep its cost structure intact.
The $2.9 billion equipment deal underscores a tension Musk himself acknowledged at Davos: “Unfortunately, in the U.S. the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high, because China makes almost all the solar.” Building the factory in America requires buying the machinery from the country Tesla is trying to reduce its dependence on.
Tesla named by U.S. Gov. in $4.3B battery deal for American-made cells
The regulatory pathway adds another layer of complexity. Suzhou Maxwell has been seeking export approval from China’s commerce ministry, and it remains unclear how quickly that clearance will come. Still, the market has already reacted, with shares in the Chinese firms reportedly involved in the talks surged more than 7% following the Reuters report that broke the story.
Whether Tesla can hit its 2028 target of 100GW of solar manufacturing remains an open question. Though that scale may seem staggering, especially in such a short timeframe, we know that Musk has a documented history of “always pulling it off” in the face of ambitious deadlines that may slip. But, rest assured – it’ll get done.
Elon Musk
Tesla named by U.S. Gov. in $4.3B battery deal for American-made cells
What began as an open secret in the energy industry was confirmed by the U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday: Tesla is the buyer behind LG Energy Solution’s blockbuster $4.3 billion battery supply agreement.
What began as an open secret in the energy industry is becoming more real after the U.S. Department of the Interior named Tesla as the stakeholder in the LG Energy Solution’s blockbuster $4.3 billion battery supply agreement.
Tesla and LG Energy Solution are expanding their partnership to build a LFP prismatic battery cell manufacturing facility in Lansing, Michigan, launching production in 2027. The announcement, made as part of the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Summit results, ends months of speculation.
“American-made cells will power Tesla’s Megapack 3 energy storage systems produced in Houston, creating a robust domestic battery supply chain.”, notes a press release on the U.S. Department of the Interior website.
Tesla has long utilized China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL), the world’s largest LFP battery maker, as one of its primary suppliers. That relationship made financial sense for years, considering that Chinese LFP cells were cheap, abundant, and reliable. But with escalated tariffs on Chinese imports and an increasingly growing Tesla Energy business that’s particularly reliant on LFP cells for products including its Megapack battery storage units designed for utilities and large-scale commercial projects.
The announcement of a deepened partnership between LG Energy Solution and Tesla has strategic logic for both parties. For Tesla, it secures a tariff-compliant, domestically produced battery supply for its fast-growing energy division. LGES, now producing LFP batteries in Michigan, becomes the only major supplier currently scaling U.S. production, outpacing rivals like Samsung SDI and SK On. LG Energy Solution’s Lansing plant, formerly known as Ultium Cells 3, was previously operated as a joint venture with General Motors. LGES acquired GM’s stake in May 2025 and now fully owns the site, with a production capacity of 50 GWh per year. LG Energy said the contract includes options to extend the supply period by up to seven years and boost volumes based on further consultations.
For the broader industry, the ripple effects are significant. This deal signals that domestic battery manufacturing can be financially viable and not just aspirational. Utilities, energy developers, and rival automakers will take note as American-made LFP supply becomes a competitive reality rather than a distant promise.
For consumers, the benefits will take time but are real. A more resilient, U.S.-based supply chain means fewer price shocks from trade disputes, more stable Megapack availability for the grid storage projects that reduce electricity costs, and long-term downward pressure on energy storage prices as domestic production scales.
Deliveries are set to begin in 2027 and run through mid-2030, and as grid storage demand accelerates, reliable, US-made battery supply is no longer a future ambition. It is becoming a core requirement of the country’s energy strategy.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.
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