Tesla has hired a very experienced manufacturing executive from Stellantis to lead quality operations at Gigafactory Texas.
As we previously reported, Tesla brought Tom Zhu, the executive in charge of Tesla’s operations in China, to the US to oversee all manufacturing and sale operations in North America last year.
The executive has since been boosting Tesla’s manufacturing leadership with several new hires.
We reported that Tesla hired Eli Lilly manufacturing executive Michael Hildebrand to lead the Gigafactory Nevada expansion earlier this year.
The automaker also poached a top manufacturing executive from Bosch, Dr. Michael Schmitt, to lead Gigafactory operations.
Now Electrek has learned that Tesla poached a top manufacturing quality executive from Stellantis: Kahiree Gans.
Gans has recently updated his LinkedIn profile to confirm that he is now Tesla’s “Head of Quality Operations” at Gigafactory Texas.
The manufacturing executive holds a mechanical engineering degree from Tuskegee University and a Master in manufacturing engineering from the University of Michigan.
He started his engineering career at GM, but he spent the last decade at Stellantis, where he held several different positions in powertrain engineering and production.
Most recently, he was head of manufacturing quality for Stellantis’ engine division.
He is now going to lead the quality operations at a critical time for Gigafactory Texas.
The factory is moving from only producing the Model Y to adding the Cybertruck production program to its manufacturing capacity. On top of it, Tesla is producing battery cell at the plant and deploying its new “unboxed” production process that will be behind its next-generation vehicles.
Fans is the latest in a series of new hires to boost Tesla’s manufacturing leadership amid a push to increase the automaker’s production capacity from currently about 2 million electric vehicles per year to 20 million by the end of the decade.
Many industry analysts don’t believe in that goal, but many also didn’t believe Tesla would ever get to 1 million vehicles per year.
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