More than a score of students from Harker’s DECA team toured the Fremont Tesla factory in late February and had an amazing time. The factory, the largest manufacturing facility in California, is the size of 92 NFL football fields or 55 Costco warehouses, the group was told.

“I was amazed by all of the difference components that they are able to manufacture under one building. The robots, the presses, and the overall process is just so impressive,” said Alexa Lowe, grade 9.

It takes about five days to make a Tesla and they make about 1,000 per day. All of the robots are named after comic book characters, such as those from X-Men, Game of Thrones, etc. “I had never been to a factory before and it was cool to see how the overall process is so unified, especially considering all of the different systems and parts that are involved,” said Suraj Pakala, grade 12.

Juston Glass, DECA advisor, noted “We had to sign a [nondisclosure agreement] and we couldn’t take any photos inside, but we got to see the whole process from start to finish!”

The visit impressed Andrea Thia, grade 9, philosophically. “It was inspiring to see how such a small dream could turn into such a large business!” she said.