Tesla Edges Out Toyota as California’s Top Auto Employer

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-16/tesla-edges-out-toyota-as-california-s-top-auto-employer.html

by cryptoz • 12 years ago

80 30 12 years ago

bloomberg.com

11thEarlOfMar2• 12 years ago

Other interesting numbers:

Revenue per employee:

Tesla: $413k

Toyota: $932k

Ford: $792k

Daimler: $581k

Gross Margins:

Tesla: 25%

Toyota: 19%

Ford: 12%

Daimler: 22%

Having the lowest rev/employee, yet the highest profitability, bodes well given Tesla's high growth rate.

(numbers courtesy Google Finance)

hnnewguy• 12 years ago

yet the highest profitability, bodes well given Tesla's high growth rate.

Comparing these companies like this is a bit odd. Tesla produced 25,000 cars last year. The others produce millions. Tesla produces a single, "luxury" model, which by definition has good margins. That's tougher to maintain at scale, with lower end, higher competition car classes.

I'm actually surprised Daimler's margins are as high they are. Ford has a lot of legacy costs.

btian• 12 years ago

Why surprised? Daimler only makes luxury models.

bluedino2• 12 years ago

Even if they produced the same amount of cars, it'd be interesting to see how many less people are employed, directly and indirectly, by Tesla than GM or Ford.

There are so many fewer parts - GM and Ford spun off so many companies who simply made things like spark plugs, air filters, mufflers, and all the little internal engine parts like lifters, pistons or camshafts.

jbellis• 12 years ago

Additionally, in 2013 about 12% of Tesla's revenue came from emissions credits rather than selling cars. That's going to do funny things to marginal profit numbers per car.

sz4kerto2• 12 years ago

You would be surprised: the luxury models are often not making any money at all, sometimes the manufacturer loses money on every single car produced.

Some examples from different price levels: Bugatti Veyron, Ford Focus RS, VW Phaeton.

The reason why they produce these is because of 'brand image'. VW builds the Veyron so the company can claim that they make the fastest car in the world, but Bugatti could not sustain itself. Same for the Focus RS: it costs a lot of money to design and build a car with that level of performance, but they can't sell it close to the price level of an entry level Ferrari (even though the costs are quite close).

This is probably the most important reason why they limit the numbers -- they want the car to be on the front page of magazines, but they also want to make sure not to sell too many.

bluedino2• 12 years ago

Remember the legacy cost discussion from the bailout days? It cost GM something like $30/hr per employee to pay just for retired workers

mathattack• 12 years ago

A lot of the other companies are in non-car businesses too. (Example: Credit) In addition, they get skewed a lot based on how much is in-house versus outsourced. I like both numbers as metrics, but it can be hard to do apples-to-apples across industries.

sremani2• 12 years ago

Please compare Tesla to an Audi, BMW or Mercedes. A Luxury car with a thin market irrespective of innovations is still a Luxury car.

pkaye• 12 years ago

They are tax payer subsidized.

carlosrt• 12 years ago

Wolfram Alpha is another place once can search for that data:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=revenue+per+employee+To...

JetSpiegel• 12 years ago

This says more about the Auto Industry than it does about Tesla, a luxury brand.

sz4kerto2• 12 years ago

I love what Tesla does in general, but ... is this really news?

BMW is Bavaria's biggest auto-industry employer. Microsoft is Redmond's biggest IT employer. It's because the headquarters are located in that particular area.

Edit: now that the title/URL has changed it seems slightly more relevant.

11thEarlOfMar2• 12 years ago

It is news because there used to be a large auto industry in California. Ford operated a huge factory in Milpitas, for example. The real news is that to some extent, manufacturing is coming back to California.

ulfw2• 12 years ago

Fact is manufacturing all moved out of California. Tesla is still a boutique small little tech outfit. Who knows if they'd be manufacturing in California when they're the size of Ford/GM/Toyota

sremani2• 12 years ago

The interesting thing is it happened even before Toyota moved its North American Headquaters to Plano, TX.

dang• 12 years ago

Url changed from http://cleantechnica.com/2014/05/26/tesla-motors-now-califor..., which points to http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1092197_largest-auto-ind..., which points to this.

Submitters: please do your due diligence and track down the original source.

jarek2• 12 years ago

Voters: please do your due diligence and don't upvote content farms

karlkatzke• 12 years ago

Yes, but Toyota just relocated their headquarters to Plano, TX, so it's hardly an "edges out" -- Toyota left.

gamblor956• 12 years ago

Toyota announced their intention to relocate. They haven't actually moved yet.

icantthinkofone• 12 years ago

Couldn't they move to almost any state and the same claim would be made? I don't think this is news.

Tesla Edges Out Toyota as California’s Top Auto Employer

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