Tesla continues to prepare for Gigafactory Mexico’s construction. It recently posted construction jobs for team leads, including architecture, civil, electrical, and mechanical engineers.
Tesla listed 7 new job openings for team leads that would likely help with Gigafactory Mexico’s construction. All the new positions are located in San Pedro Garza García, Nuevo León. Listed below are each team lead position and the responsibilities of each role.
Architecture Lead
- Lead the architectural scope of Gigafactory Mexico; responsible for developing architectural design packages for permitting and construction
- Review and develop designs that are cost-effective, constructible, code compliant while meeting Tesla’s quality and schedule requirements.
- Lead the development of Scope of Work, Basis of Design, Scheduling, and Estimating documents. Work with various manufacturing, construction, and facilities stakeholders to understand end-user needs. Manage and oversee the work of consultants.
- Develop process improvements, workflows, and templates to increase design productivity.
- Perform architectural assignments with no direction and no immediate supervision, and work independently as well as collaboratively with others toward design and technical solutions.
- Provide production of design drawings, presentation drawings, and digital models.
- Lead in the execution of construction administration responsibilities, as well as lead in the review and execution of design documents that meet building code.
Mechanical Design Engineer Lead
- Lead interdisciplinary teams on design projects
- Evaluate solutions and present findings to leadership
- Conduct feasibility studies, cost estimations, and equipment procurement
- Direct designers and collaborate with contractors in the field
- Ensure construction documents are followed and perform project closeouts
- Collaborate daily with interdisciplinary project teams
- Perform punch walks and project closeouts
Process Engineering Lead
- Apply engineering fundamentals and a broad set of process engineering tools to solve technical problems and create novel detailed designs for various gas and chemical systems such as refrigerants, cryogenic gases, inert gases, viscous fluids, corrosive fluids, reactive fluids, and flammable fluids.
- Lead front-end and detailed process designs for complex and program-level projects, including scope development, Basis of Design documentation, PFDs, P&IDs, 3D piping system design, pressure drop analysis and Pipe-Flo modeling, pressure relief valve calculations, equipment datasheets, Aspen simulation where required, and supporting Sequence of Operations / Controls Narrative documents.
- Provide technical expertise to the engineering/design team and other groups within Tesla as a subject matter expert (SME)
- Participate in commercial contracting activities, including development of scopes of work, evaluation of bid packages, performing bid analysis, competitive bid leveling, and working with Procurement to prepare commercial subcontracts.
- Participate in field construction and commissioning activities by serving as the point of contact for technical questions and real-time issue resolution, as well as maintaining master piping and equipment specifications.
- Review process design work performed by others on the Process Team to ensure every design maintains the highest level of quality, including P&IDs, plan drawings, and single-line iso’s
- Provide process engineering support to facilities operations and manufacturing teams to help resolve process bottlenecks and other long-standing issues and mentor less experienced engineers on the team.
Civil Engineering Lead
- Promote and protect Tesla’s reputation as a cutting-edge company producing the world’s most exciting cars and shifting the paradigm of personal transportation worldwide.
- Manage multiple projects throughout planning, design, bid, and construction phases. Define and plan project work scope, schedules, budget, and resource requirements.
- Independently develop high-quality civil engineering products, including construction document drawings, specifications, narratives, calculations, and utilize and improve civil design standards and details.
- Review drawings and proposals by vendors, engineers, and architects and drive multi-disciplinary coordination. Present 30%, 60%, [and] 90% model reviews to stakeholders and multi-discipline teams
- Effectively and proactively communicate project needs, changes, and status to both internal and external team members
- Conduct meetings and coordinate permitting agencies to obtain jurisdictional approvals of civil engineering scope.
Structural Engineering Lead
- Lead design for a variety of new and renovation projects from estimating through construction, including providing preliminary estimates and guidance on structural systems
- Evaluate, assign, and manage external consultant teams.
- Coordinate structural design on multidiscipline project teams, including Mechanical, Electrical, Piping/Plumbing (MEP), and architectural professionals.
- Complete knowledge of applicable building codes and structural design standards to conduct structural analysis along with the creation of justifying structural calculations
- Build a competent and effective team, including mentorship of less experienced engineering staff and development of design standards/procedures.
- Provide QA/QC of design drawings and calculations for both internal and external design scopes.
- Ability to articulate complex concepts to non-technical audiences. Present design concepts, including options with tradeoffs to high-level stakeholders to secure cross-functional buyoffs.
Lead Control System Engineer
- Participate in initial equipment conceptual development and carefully balance product specifications, process control requirements, layout complexity, cost, quality, and lead-time limits.
- Work closely with PLC and HMI development to integrate and develop innovative control solutions.
- Participate in continuous improvement activities with key stakeholders and engineering groups.
- Participate in specification and standard creation for instrument types, PLC/PSP Panels, and VFDs
- Participate in design validation practices, including LOPA and HazOp analyses.
- Participate in the execution of start-up and commissioning activities.
- Produce RFQs for release to Vendor and quote technical evaluation.
Electrical Engineering Lead
- Interface and collaborate with multiple discipline engineers
- Ability to multi-task, prioritize, and work in an extremely fast-paced environment.
- Collaborate with various design teams and liaise with manufacturing, construction, and facility stakeholders to understand the project requirements and deliver fully coordinated sets of construction documents.
- Interface and guide external electrical design consultants during project execution to ensure that design and specifications meet the project requirements
- Review electrical drawings, construction/procurement documents, and specifications for MV and LV electrical systems. Typical scope includes normal and emergency power distribution systems, lighting, and grounding systems.
- Attend on-site construction and commissioning activities by serving as the point of contact for technical questions and real-time issue resolution.
- Report to Electrical Project Lead
Tesla appointed Teresa Gutiérrez as the new country manager in Mexico. Following her appointment, Tesla ramped up hiring for sales, service, and delivery jobs. From Tesla’s recent job posts, it seems to be strengthening its positions in Mexico as it prepares to construct the new gigafactory.
Currently, the government of Nuevo León is preparing the surrounding area for Giga Mexico’s construction. It is expanding the Monterrey-Saltillio highway near Tesla Giga Mexico. The local government expects traffic to spike along the highway as Giga Mexico suppliers set up their own bases in Nuevo León.
Apply for Tesla Giga Mexico team lead positions here.
If you have any tips, contact me at maria@teslarati.com or via X @Writer_01001101.
Elon Musk
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Musk disputes NASA estimate of 22 Starship launches for Moon landing, predicting 6 to 8.
Elon Musk is disputing a new NASA safety panel estimate of how many Starship launches it will take to put astronauts on the Moon, saying the real number will be less than half the panel’s figure.
On Thursday, NASA’s Aerospace Safety Advisory Panel held its quarterly public meeting. Panel member Charlie Precourt, a former NASA astronaut, flagged the fueling process for SpaceX’s lunar lander as a major risk for Artemis IV, the mission planned to land a crew on the Moon in 2028. “We need to keep our eyes on numerous required fuelings for the lander,” Precourt said, according to Ars Technica. “I think the last estimate is around 22 flights.”
Ars Technica’s Eric Berger posted the comment on X, and Musk replied. “That’s way too high,” Musk wrote. “Actual number will be more like 6 to 8.”
The disagreement comes down to a basic problem with sending a ship as large as Starship to the Moon. Starship burns nearly all of its propellant just reaching Earth orbit, so it cannot continue on to the Moon without stopping for a refill. SpaceX’s answer is a gas station in space. First, a Starship that works as a storage tank, called a depot, is launched into orbit. Then a series of tanker Starships launch one at a time, dock with the depot and pump their leftover propellant into it. Once the depot is full, the lunar lander version of Starship launches, docks, fills up and heads for the Moon.
Every tanker trip is its own full rocket launch, which is why the count matters. More launches mean more time, more cost and more chances for something to go wrong before astronauts ever leave Earth. Berger estimated that even if SpaceX reaches twice weekly Starship launches by the end of 2027, filling a depot at the panel’s number would still take roughly three months.
How many tankers are needed depends mostly on how much propellant each one can carry to orbit and how much is lost along the way. Starship’s fuel and oxygen are stored at extremely cold temperatures, and some of it slowly boils off while waiting in orbit. More is lost in each transfer. NASA appears to be working from what Starship can lift today, while Musk’s range assumes a more capable rocket.
Musk has pushed back on higher counts before. In 2021, after a government document suggested 16 launches, he called that “extremely unlikely” and said eight tankers would be the most required.
Much of the answer depends on hardware SpaceX has not finished flying. As Teslarati noted earlier this year, the company plans to carry out the refueling process with its upgraded V3 Starship, and Precourt described Artemis IV as carrying “a large number of firsts.” He also praised NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman’s team for working to clear obstacles for both SpaceX and Blue Origin, whose Blue Moon lander does not rely on orbital refueling for its first mission.
Elon Musk
Tesla’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
Fort Bend County approved four incentive agreements Thursday for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar factory.
Fort Bend County commissioners on Thursday approved a package of tax incentives for Tesla’s proposed $10.1 billion solar cell factory near Needville, Texas, giving the company one of the last local approvals it needs before it decides where to build. All four Tesla agreements passed 4 to 0.
The votes covered a property tax abatement inside Reinvestment Zone No. 34, a Chapter 381 economic development agreement, a foreign trade zone non-objection paired with payments in lieu of certain taxes, and a separate payment in lieu of taxes “true up” agreement, according to agenda notes from the Fort Bend Commissioners Court meeting.
The project, known internally as “Project Crystal Sun,” would make solar cells and finished modules on roughly 3,000 acres near FM 762 and FM 1994, south of the Brazos River. As Teslarati reported when the filing first surfaced in August, Tesla’s application under the state’s JETI Act splits the investment into $1.5 billion in real property and $8.6 billion in equipment, with 9,712 permanent jobs projected by 2033 and commercial operations targeted for the first quarter of 2029. The plant would handle the full chain from ingot and wafer production through cell testing.
Inside Tesla’s secretive $10 Billion “Project Crystal Sun” filing
Thursday’s approval does not lock in the site. Tesla has told the Texas Comptroller it is still weighing other locations, and site selection adviser David Dennison told Lamar Consolidated ISD trustees in September that the race had narrowed to Fort Bend and one out of state rival with a “very compelling package,” according to the Houston Chronicle. Tesla hopes to decide before the end of 2026, and the incentives still need sign off from the Comptroller and the Governor’s office.
Local officials have now done nearly everything within their control. Commissioners created the reinvestment zone in an August 24 special meeting, with Interim County Judge Daniel Wong formally withdrawing himself over his engineering firm’s past work with Tesla. Lamar CISD trustees voted 7 to 0 on September 15 to advance a JETI agreement that would tax Tesla’s qualifying property at 50 percent of its value for maintenance and operations from 2029 through 2038.
The plant lines up with a target Elon Musk set on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call in January, when he said the company would “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.” In March, Tesla was reported to be negotiating a $2.9 billion purchase of Chinese solar manufacturing equipment bound for Texas. The Houston area already hosts Tesla’s Megafactory in Brookshire, where Megapack 3 production has started. Tesla said on its Q3 call that Megapack supply for 2027 is nearly sold out, and Musk wrote on X Thursday that the company is “increasing production of Megapacks as much as possible,” as demand from data centers climbs.
Tesla revealed plans to develop its own maps internally to fix Navigation issues and give owners more control over their routing.
On the company’s Q3 2026 Earnings Call, a question was asked about FSD Navigation issues, particularly speed limit recognition, parking, and routing. These are issues that surface from version to version and seem to be seriously challenging for Tesla’s AI team to resolve.
Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said in response to the question:
“You’re totally right that we shouldn’t be depending on external people’s maps. So we are building our own maps, but not like the same way as OneMoreMap. We are building an entirely new architecture with essentially AI-based mapping and navigation.”
He continued:
“It’s going to be super awesome. It’s going to be integrated with voice. You can talk to it, ask for different routes. It’s going to learn your personalized preferences, plus the fleet preferences. The collective intelligence of all the cars is going to flow into making the maps and navigation super cool.”
Elluswamy said this issue should be confronted, and the mapping should be available for people by the time the v15 release starts deploying to customers.
“And over the next several months,” he added, “it’s just going to take over all of the navigation functions, parking, destination handling. And it will know you better than you know yourself in some regard for the driving task, and then handle it fully.”
Tesla Summon got insanely good in FSD v14.3.2 — Navigation? Not so much
Navigation is perhaps the most notable complaint with FSD, and although it has gotten better, it is still flawed. Much of the time, FSD will take people on routes that are not preferred by the driver, but Tesla tried to combat this with a routing feature in the Summer 2026 Update.
Tesla currently relies on Google for map data, but it is sort of counterintuitive to believe the company would rely on a third party for this. These improvements will be welcome, as routing and navigation have been such a pain point for so many owners for so long.
Quotes via Motley Fool
The Starship moon landing number NASA and Elon Musk can’t agree on
Tesla’s secretive “Project Crystal Sun” gets a big green light in Texas
