This was our first acquisition, and a hotly debated one internally given our financial position at the time (had just posted a $150M loss in Q1 2015).
The rationale was powerful, however. While Tesla had figured out a lot about building cars during the initial Model S years, we had much more to learn given ambitions for the Model 3.
Riviera Tool & Die, in addition to having an awesome team that could build much-needed tools for prototyping and production - also provided knowledge that would prove to be indispensable. Tesla was able to leverage the expertise to get lower costs / better results on tools across our whole factory and entire supply base. The value of the Grand Rapids team was extraordinarily outsized with respect to Model 3 production readiness (and beyond).
And of course, was awesome to begin expanding our footprint into the Midwest :)
Interesting post from the VP of Finance at Tesla in the comments...
https://x.com/sendilpalani/status/1915300706359402964
This was our first acquisition, and a hotly debated one internally given our financial position at the time (had just posted a $150M loss in Q1 2015).
The rationale was powerful, however. While Tesla had figured out a lot about building cars during the initial Model S years, we had much more to learn given ambitions for the Model 3.
Riviera Tool & Die, in addition to having an awesome team that could build much-needed tools for prototyping and production - also provided knowledge that would prove to be indispensable. Tesla was able to leverage the expertise to get lower costs / better results on tools across our whole factory and entire supply base. The value of the Grand Rapids team was extraordinarily outsized with respect to Model 3 production readiness (and beyond).
And of course, was awesome to begin expanding our footprint into the Midwest :)