Hayward Metal Firm Getting Huge Boost From Tesla Motors' Success
HAYWARD (CBS SF) -- Shares of Tesla Motors surged Friday following better-than-expected fourth-quarter results, and now another Bay Area company is getting a charge from electric car maker's success.
Inland Metal Technologies in Hayward, a provider of precision sheet metal and assemblies, is expanding their business because of Tesla's increased use of their products.
Inland Metal's CEO Stan Sutton said his firm has grown 40 percent in the last year, hiring more than 100 people in 2013. "(The) growth not only includes growth of our company, but it filters down throughout the Bay Area," said Sutton. "There's growth in our hiring as well our vendors hiring, and their vendors hiring."
Sutton said the challenge will be to keep up with Tesla's growth. On Friday Palo Alto-based Tesla forecasted a 55 percent surge in deliveries of its Model S electric sedan this year.
"We can [keep up], said Sutton. "Part of it is being able to grow along with Tesla, understanding the need for investment and hiring."
Sutton believes investment in technology-dependent firms such as Tesla leads other companies to adapt themselves to the tech boom. "You're seeing an expansion of capabilities as a result of seed money that was developed through Tesla," said Sutton. "So Tesla not only grew itself in the process, but coat-tailed hundreds of other companies, technology companies, created technology companies from what were otherwise conventional manufacturing firms in the past."
Tesla also said it would soon reveal the site of its planned so-called "gigafactory" where it will centralize the manufacture of car batteries and their component parts, critical to its plans of eventually producing 500,000 cars per year.