[lord_jim]

I found that number surprising, although I also know very little about what it takes to manufacture things. Any idea what the employee breakdown looks like in terms of profession and area of focus (since they have solar city too)?

[csours]

No more than 3k would be working on the assembly operations, and maybe a good deal less (based on knowledge of other automotive assembly operations).

That 3k would include line assembly workers, material delivery, quality inspectors as well as skilled trades like electricians, pipe fitters, tool and die makers (for stamping operations)

Another 1-2k assembly staff (IT, Quality Engineers, Controls Engineers, Material Coordinators).

Tesla does a lot of in-house component manufacturing, so that may be another 3-10k (I'm including gigafactory in this estimate, but I have no real clue here, as I don't know how much of this they actually do).

Then you have people like automotive designers, engineers, and buyers, no real clue here, but almost certainly less than 2k.

Then you have corporate functions: accountants, hr, IT, other back office, another 500?

Then you have the sales side - not sure how they structure this, but they have a lot of show rooms with a good number of people working them - another 1k?

3 + 2 + 10 + 2 + .5 + 1 = 18,500

They're doing a lot of plant construction and equipment installation; generally in the industry most or all of that is outsourced, but Tesla seems to prefer strong vertical integration, so maybe those are straight Tesla employees as well.

[yellowapple]

1k seems pretty low for sales staff if we really are including the showrooms. I'm counting ~100-110 showrooms listed on Tesla's website, so that would amount to 10 people per showroom. Doable, I guess, but still low.

Are janitorial/maintenance staff considered to be employees in this count? Or are they contracted out?

[csours]

Janitorial would almost certainly be contracted out at any other automotive company.

[hkmurakami]

Wondering what the ratio is between Tesla HQ functions, Tesla Manufacturing, Tesla charging infrastructure servicing, Solar City HQ, and Solar City installation/maintenance/servicing.

[kal444]

would be interesting to get a count of engineering staff at least.