Tesla is buying a German engineering company to automate factories

On Tuesday, Tesla announced that it will acquire Grohmann Engineering, a German automated manufacturing company.

The terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

In a statement, Tesla described Grohmann as a "world-renowned engineering company in Prüm, Germany, which will become Tesla Grohmann Automation."

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According to Tesla:

Accelerating a sustainable energy future is only possible with high-volume factories. They allow us to manufacture high-quality products with economies of scale, making them more affordable and accessible to the world. As the machine that builds the machine, our factories are so important that we believe they will ultimately deserve an order of magnitude more attention in engineering than what they produce. At very high production volumes, the factory becomes more of a product than the product itself.

After increasing our output target to 500,000 cars per year by 2018, we began searching for the best engineering talent in automated manufacturing systems ...

Led by founder and CEO Klaus Grohmann, Grohmann Engineering is one of the world leaders in highly automated methods of manufacturing. This transaction will bring Mr. Grohmann's leadership, a world-class team and unique expertise in-house. Moreover, it will serve as the initial base for Tesla Advanced Automation Germany headquarters, with other locations to follow. We expect to add over 1,000 advanced engineering and skilled technician jobs in Germany over the next two years.

Tesla shares were trading up slightly pre-market, to $194.

This is breaking news. We will update when we learn more.