One issue with the article is that doesn't distinguish between the statistics for Nevada as a whole, which are totally dominated by Las Vegas's size, and northern Nevada, which has a different economic makeup than sin city.<p>As a recent transplant to Reno I've been very happy with how livable the area is. The University of Nevada -Reno is a solid research university, the town has a palpable belief in itself these days, the proximity to Tahoe makes all sorts of luxuries available, and the economy is both more diverse and better educated than this article indicates (again, Reno != Vegas.) The Tesla deal certainly seems to have spurred conversations that weren't happening a year ago, and I've personally been getting a number of headhunters calling me for local software development work in the last couple of months, which was a pleasant surprise, I was worried I had put a giant railroad spike in my career by moving.<p>The political leadership in Reno and Northern Nevada have been playing a long game for a while to diversify and expand the economy. I considered it very serendipitous to find out how successful they've been since I moved here.
I still can't see how that place can profitably employ 6,500 people. That's a huge head count for a US industrial plant. As I pointed out yesterday, the largest auto assembly plant in the US, Ford's at Kansas City, has 3700 employees. The Leaf battery plant has about 250. Modern manufacturing plants which crank out identical products in high volume don't need many people. 6500 employees is the kind of number you'd get if you looked at a non-automated battery pack plant in China.<p>Low-end battery plants in China usually have cells manufactured in automated facilities (often in Japan) which are then assembled by hand into battery packs. That may be Tesla's plan. Cell manufacturing in the Reno plant will be done by Panasonic Energy Corporation of North America. They're hiring.[2] Panasonic writes: <i>"Panasonic Corporation will cooperate with Tesla Motors, Inc. to construct a large-scale advanced battery manufacturing facility known as the Gigafactory in the state of Nevada. Panasonic's role in the Gigafactory will be to manufacture and supply cylindrical lithium-ion cells and invest in the associated equipment, machinery, and other manufacturing tools based on the battery demand from Tesla. Tesla will take the cells and other components to assemble battery modules and packs."</i><p>So it looks like the factory will make round Panasonic cells a lot like the current Ncr18650 ones[3], using Panasonic technology and employees, which will then be hand-assembled into packs by Tesla employees. That's essentially what they're doing now. Unclear why this will reduce cost per unit.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.industry.siemens.com/topics/global/en/battery-manufacturing/process/pages/default.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.industry.siemens.com/topics/global/en/battery-man...</a>
[2] <a href="http://panasonic.taleo.net/careersection/external/jobdetail.ftl?job=1403648&src=JB-10200" rel="nofollow">http://panasonic.taleo.net/careersection/external/jobdetail....</a>
[3] <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Ncr18650a-3100mAh-Rechargeable-panasonic/dp/B00AHS5EH4" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-Ncr18650a-3100mAh-Rechargeab...</a>
Bizarre article. The California border is waaay closer than they stated, and although it's possible for a long term worker to live in SF and commute weekly, that would be the worst of both worlds; obscene living costs + a huge commute.<p>The 49% they state won't be Californians, they'll be people from all around the country who agree to move to Reno. For the purposes of the Nevadan economy, this is a win-win (although it might not be as good for education, but that's what the education requirements are for).
"The company sold an estimated 18,750 of its Model S roadsters in 2014, at a sticker price of about $70,000."<p>18,750? How about more like ~33,000? And "roadsters?" Really?<p>Used to be the Washington Post had reliable reporters. Now it's just another blog.