Tesla Details its Economic Impact on California

Image: Tesla

Tesla today outlined its economic footprint in California as part of a new blog post. Since its inception 20 years ago, Tesla has grown to become the Golden State’s largest manufacturing employer, with 47,000 direct employees as of 2022.

California is home to Tesla’s Fremont factory — which last year became the highest-yield automotive plant in North America — and several other manufacturing efforts.

Tesla’s footprint in California is made up of Megapack production and vehicle castings in Lathrop, hardware and software engineering in Palo Alto, vehicle and battery manufacturing in Fremont, battery development and testing in San Diego and vehicle design in Hawthorne.

According to Tesla, the number of jobs it was supporting in California grew by 40% from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, Tesla paid its workers 50% more than the state’s average. The company also offered the highest compensation in its sectors.

Tesla went on to cite a recent economic impact assessment conducted by IHS Markit that highlights some of the company’s economic contributions to California. These include:

• Tesla-supported California jobs (direct and indirect) exceeded 80,000 in 2021. Over 43,000 of these stemmed from $1.6 billion in expenditures with California suppliers.
• For every 100 direct Tesla jobs, 50 more were supported in the supply chain and 68 by follow-on consumer activity.
• From 2018 to 2021, Tesla paid an average of $1 billion in federal, state and local taxes annually, with approximately $400 million going toward state and local taxes in 2021.
• Tesla’s average contribution to the gross state product (GSP) rose by 42% between 2018-2021, while the state’s GSP grew by 16%.
• Wages from Tesla and Tesla-connected jobs resulted in $16.6 billion in economic activity, or $44.4 million injected into California’s economy each day.

Tesla’s Fremont factory celebrated a new milestone last year as its 2 millionth car rolled off the production line. The company also filed plans for an additional battery manufacturing line at the plant in August.

“Since 2016, we have made over $5 billion in capital investments in our facilities. We are confident that these trends will continue and that 2023 will be an even bigger year for Tesla in California,” Tesla concluded in its blog post.

Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom passed a new law that effectively bans Tesla from using the “Full Self-Driving” branding for its in-development autonomous driving software in the state.