Tesla has once again been able to meet and exceed New York State’s job level requirements for its Gigafactory in Buffalo, avoiding a potential $41.2 million fine in the process.
After providing $950 million in taxpayer funding to build and partially equip the 1.2 million square foot facility, Tesla was required to have at least 1,460 jobs by the end of 2022. According to a report submitted to state officials Tesla has 1,734 full-time workers at the factory, bolstered by another 107 part-time employees.
Tesla didn’t stop there and continued to hire through January, adding another 214 employees through to January 23, bringing the headcount to 1,948. The report said Tesla planned to add another 130 workers by the end of January, although it is unclear if they were able to achieve that goal.
By exceeding the requirement by nearly 300 jobs Tesla does not have to pay a $41.2 million fine. Tesla also avoided a similar fine last year when it reported 1,636 jobs at the end of 2021.
“This past year has been another excellent year for Tesla in Buffalo and throughout New York state,” said Jeff Munson, the treasurer for the Tesla affiliate that operates the Buffalo plant. (via Buffalo News)
Often the forgotten stepchild of Tesla’s Gigafactories, Giga New York, or Gigafactory 2, is responsible for the production of some of the company’s solar products, most notably the Solar Roof tiles. In 2019 Tesla expanded the facility to add production lines for electrical components for its Superchargers and energy storage products.
According to a report from Buffalo News the factory is also now home to a team working on the Full Self-Driving (FSD) program. Many of those jobs are data annotation specialists which process data from vehicles to help develop the driver-assist software.
