NUMMI, five years later: Inside Tesla - KALW
This is Part 3 of a three-part series looking at what’s happened in the five years since the NUMMI auto plant closed. Read Part 1 and Part 2 , or (we recommend) listen to the whole radio show. Before Maryo Mendez found that auto shop job at Sears, he actually dropped his resume off at the building where he used to work. NUMMI wasn’t there anymore, of course, but there were still cars being made inside. Only a few months after NUMMI shut down, Tesla Motors snatched up the space. 5 million square foot building was valued at $1. 3 billion, but because it was the recession, Tesla bought it for just $42 million. When the rest of the auto industry was going bankrupt, Tesla began to thrive, and it gave former NUMMI workers like Mendez a tiny bit of hope. I got some leads from some people that were working in there,” Mendez says. The truth is that when Tesla moved into NUMMI it was still a really small startup. In 2012, the company was only making five cars a week, and didn’t need that many employees. “A lot of NUMMI workers who would’ve brought valuable skills, for whatever reason, didn't wind up at Tesla,” he adds. They won’t say exactly how many -- or how many used to work at NUMMI. Source: kalw.org
