Tesla has reportedly agreed to take over a struggling company with a Canadian connection that assembles battery production lines for the auto industry.
ATW, a subsidiary of Canadian ATS Automation Tooling Systems Inc. in Cambridge, Ontario, was facing a large decline in sales and the possibility of having to liquidate.
On September 25, ATS announced that certain assets and employees from one of its German-based units, without disclosing the name of the company. Two German publications, The European and WirtschaftsKurier confirmed that company was Tesla.
“ATW’s business partners received notification on Tuesday that they had agreed on a takeover by a manufacturer of electric vehicles “in California”. That this is Tesla, based in Palo Alto in California’s Silicon Valley, was not confirmed in the letter, but word got around in the industry. A celebration at ATW in Neuwied, where the takeover was toasted on Friday, may have contributed to this. Several Tesla vehicles with the registration number “BIT” drove up for Bitburg.”
ATW has about 120 employees that have completed over 20 battery production lines for several international automakers, including BMW and Mercedes.
The acquisition will likely help Tesla deploy battery production lines to its new Gigafactory in Berlin, as well as Giga Texas in the US.
