Tesla hires new management to expand production in North America

Tesla has hired two new managers to expand its production in North America. German manufacturing specialist Michael Schmitt has joined Tesla from Bosch, and manager Michael Hildebrand from pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly.

What the portal Electrek first reported is confirmed by Schmitt’s LinkedIn profile: Michael Schmitt now works for Tesla as “Director Operation Giga Tesla” from Austin, Texas. This suggests that his role relates to the Tesla factory there – but possibly also to the planned new Tesla plant in Mexico. After all, Schmitt worked for Bosch for over 25 years, including five years as head of Bosch’s auto parts manufacturing in Mexico.

Michael Schmitt will probably support Tom Zhu at Tesla, who at the beginning of the year, in addition to his role as China boss and highest-ranking manager for Tesla’s sales in the rest of Asia, also took over the supervision of the electric car manufacturer’s US assembly plants and sales activities in North America and Europe.

Tesla has hired Michael Hildebrand as another new manager. Hildebrand comes from the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, where he was employed for 18 years, and will lead the expansion of the factory in Nevada as “Head of Gigafactory Nevada Expansion Engineering and Construction”. The US electric car manufacturer announced a massive expansion of its site in Nevada in January. A new production facility for 4680 battery cells with a capacity of 100 gigawatt-hours per year is planned, as well as another for the series production of the Tesla Semi electric truck.

For the implementation of these plans, Tesla calculates investments of more than 3.6 billion US dollars and wants to hire 3,000 new employees. Further information on the schedule, for example, has not yet been made public.

In terms of personnel, there is also a prominent departure at Tesla: this week it was announced that Zachery Kirkhorn has resigned as Tesla’s chief financial officer. Kirkhorn is leaving the company after a total of 13 years and four years as the chief financial officer (CFO), but will remain available to Tesla until the end of the year to ensure a smooth transition. His successor has already been announced with Vaibhav Taneja, the current chief accountant.

electrek.co, linkedin.com (Schmitt), electrek.co, linkedin.com (Hildebrand)