Grohmann’s founder and CEO, Klaus Grohmann, is staying with the business, which specialises in automated manufacturing of products including batteries. Its clients have included Daimler and BMW, and its revenues in 2015 totalled €123m.

Tesla says the new business will design and produce “critical” elements for its automated manufacturing systems and will help to make its factories “the most advanced in the world”. Combined with existing engineering facilities in the US, the acquisition “will yield exponential improvements in the speed and quality of production, while substantially reducing the capital expenditures required per vehicle”. Tesla has boosted production at its Californian plant by 400% over the past four years and expects the acquisition to accelerate that growth.