Tesla lagging in more ways than one

According to the morning paper, the Tesla Motors gigafactory near Sparks is on track to meet its hiring and tax incentive goals, if not its manufacturing goals.

In a 2014 special session of the Nevada Legislature the company was handed $1.3 billion of tax credits and abatements for which it would qualify if it met certain hiring and capital investment goals. The plan was to build a $5 billion, 10 million-square-foot factory to make batteries for its electric cars and employ 6,500 workers. The money was to be channeled through the Governor’s Office of Economic Development.

Today’s paper quotes the governor’s spokeswoman as saying, “Tesla has met all of its benchmarks and exceeded the state’s goals.”

The story states the factory has 1,400 full-time employees and that Tesla estimated it would need 6,500 employees in the Gigafactory by 2024.

But in 2014 the paper reported that Tesla planned to employ 4,700 workers by 2017 and the 6,500 by 2018.

According to projections published by the GOED at the time, the company payroll would be more than $267 million this year. But using the payroll figures in today’s paper puts the payroll closer to $120 million.

The lithium-ion batteries that are supposed to be built at the factory are to power Tesla’s more modestly priced Model 3, which was to be in full production for by 2018.

According to Forbes, the company planned to building 20,000 cars a month by December, but in the third quarter of this year the company built only 260 cars, below the goal of 1,500. The problem is with the batteries.

Your tax dollars in inaction?

Inside Tesla gigafactory