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Tesla's Already Shopping For More Office Space
cartechboy writes Remember four years ago when Tesla's new headquarters in Palo Alto, California seemed like a big risk? Yeah, time flies and now the Silicon Valley startup is already running out of room. Apparently the electric-car maker is already looking for 200,000-300,000 square feet of office space in the lower Peninsula market. Part of the motivation is that the company would like to have employees closer to its Fremont factory, which is 20 miles from its current headquarters. With heavy traffic that journey can take up to an hour or more. While not looking to relocate its headquarters, Tesla's simply looking to expand its space. Meanwhile, we all eagerly await to hear if the Gigafactory will indeed end up being built in Nevada.
Checking out Detroit is definitely on my bucket list. However, I have conveniently put it as the last item just in case it's the last thing I do.
Tesla is trying to be a disruptive force in the auto market, they aren't going to do that by locating in Detroit. Too many "old car" thinkers.
Free market is a bitch. You skew the laws favoring employers, employees with skills leave, creating a vicious cycle.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Tesla is trying to be a disruptive force in the auto market, they aren't going to do that by locating in Detroit. Too many "old car" thinkers.
Offer them a job and they'll think any way you want them to. And I imagine some of those old car thinkers bring some old-school practical experience with them too, particularly useful when it comes to competing with establishment titans like Ford, GM, etc. (with their dirty tricks).
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Just north of the Fremont plant is undeveloped land that is right next to the new BART station. They could build there allowing employees to take mass transit and also be within walking distance of the factory. If they out grow the space, or hit lean times, they should be able to rent the space at a premium since it is next to the station.
Tesla might want to take a page from Henry Ford's book, from back when He was the cutting edge of high tek:
Ford, to this day, has most of its office space in, or typically as a layer on the outer surface of, its factories, laboratories, etc. Walk down the hall and every few hundred feet you can make a right turn, go through a door, and be on the factory floor or a balcony around it with a handy stairway to it.
Generally the best way to the cafeteria is usually across the floor, as is the best way to more offices than not. (Indeed, the cafeteria may be in the CENTER of the plant, making it equally convenient to all but more convenient to the workers, and making a trip through the factory mandatory for white-collars who want to do lunch.)
Henry wanted the engineers and executives to be connected to the nitty-gritty of the business, and thought that keeping it visible, several times a day, would help improve communication and focus.
There's a story about the River Rouge plant - Henry's dream manufacturing complex, designed to eat iron ore and spit cars: Seems that the managers built an office building in the middle of it, and when it was done, showed it to Henry. After the tour he asked them "How many cars are built here?" When they answered "none", he asked "What parts are built here?" Again the answer was "none". So he had it torn down. B-)
(Cadillac Motor Car did the same sort of thing, at least through the '70s: The offices were across the street from the main assembly plant, but there was an enclosed bridge between them and you actually had to walk across the in-operation assembly line (on the second floor, near the "body drop") to get to the cafeteria / lunch room.)
It may seem strange to give Tesla suggestions from the Detroit auto industry. But IMHO this is something that they got very right. You'll notice my examples were Ford and Cadillac:
The Ford family took the company back from the Pointy Haired Business School Grads a few decades back, turning it around {and undoing the McCarthy Era communication stoppage between the white and blue collars that trashed the US auto industry while Japan built their industry on Demming}. Unlike GM and Chrysler, Ford didn't need a bailout. It was out-competing Japanese auto companie on quality, reliability, safety, and price-performance.
Cadillac, through long since merged into GM, was given a hands-off treatment for decades, because it made cars to exceptionally high quality and comfort standards.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
" Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Michigan which have friendly labor laws and cheaper labor pools..."
You overlook the fact that those places are in Texas, Alabama, North Carolina, and Michigan.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on