Originally published on CleanTechnica.
Many people don’t know about the “other” Tesla factory — the one in Europe. Officially known as the Tesla Motors Netherlands, and also known as the Tilburg Factory, it is a combination shipping and receiving point all set up to support a core of assembly activities. Tilburg receives containers full of Tesla parts which have been built at the main factory in Fremont, California, breaks down those incoming shipments, then assembles them back into full Tesla Model S vehicles.
Shipping the cars over in component containers is a cheaper, safer way to ship the cars across the world and is also likely the first step along the way towards Tesla establishing regional manufacturing bases near their key markets. Tilburg is strategically located close to the key Western Europe markets and could one day evolve into a full Tesla factory, as demand ramps up over the next few years.
After the cars have been assembled, they are run through a rigorous testing and validation process with laser alignment, a full water booth test to ensure no leaks, and a few trips around the longest indoor test track in Europe. Obviously, there’s a lot of attention to detail here and it’s clear that this team is comprised of professionals, which seems like the perfect foundation for a new factory. The video notes that the overhead carriers are part of the original equipment at the Tesla Fremont factory — in looking closer, the rubber nubs that hold the cars actually look like basketball shoes, which is funny. I know they name some of their equipment but I wasn’t aware that these were the Air Jordans of the factory:
For now, with Tesla making a video to brag about them, it seems that the folks at Tilburg are doing a fantastic job of unloading, assembling, testing, and delivering to happy Tesla owners. By all accounts, this is yet another brilliantly coordinated piece of the well oiled Tesla machine. 🙂 Check it out for yourself in the video above if you haven’t yet.