After SolarCity, Tesla is now on an acquisition spree. Well not really, but it is Tesla’s third acquisition with the last two being back to back considering SolarCity is expected to close this month. Today Tesla announced the acquisition of the German engineering group: Grohmann Engineering.

The firm will be incorporated into what Tesla is now calling ‘Tesla Advanced Automation Germany’ and the company says that other Tesla Advanced Automation groups will be announced in other locations in order to hire the “best engineering talent in automated manufacturing systems”.

The company is presenting the acquisition as part of its strategy to focus on “the machine that builds the machine” – meaning the factory. Tesla wrote in a press release:

“As the machine that builds the machine, our factories are so important that we believe they will ultimately deserve an order of magnitude more attention in engineering than what they produce. At very high production volumes, the factory becomes more of a product than the product itself. “

Tesla describes Grohmann Engineering, led by founder and CEO Klaus Grohmann, as “one of the world leaders in highly automated methods of manufacturing”. The firm’s headquarters are in Prüm, Germany, and it will become Tesla Grohmann Automation and serve as the base of the automaker’s ‘Tesla Advanced Automation Germany’ group, which the company hope will constitute of “over 1,000 advanced engineering and skilled technician jobs in Germany over the next two years. ”

Grohmann Engineering had over 700 employees before the acquisition: one-third production engineers, one-third technicians, and one-third working on “controls and technology”.

Tesla CTO JB Straubel says that Tesla has been working with Grohmann for over a year on key projects for the Model 3. CEO Elon Musk said that he deeply respects Klaus Grohmann and his team, and Straubel says that the team has been working well with Tesla so it made sense to incorporate it into Tesla and simplify the cooperation.

Musk said that they are not disclosing the terms of the acquisition, but he mentioned that it was Tesla’s “first significant acquisition” considering the SolarCity acquisition is not closed yet. He added that the company plans more significant investments in Germany going forward and that the acquisition should be seen as Tesla’s endorsement of German engineering talent.

Musk and Straubel are currently holding a press call with Grohmann about the announcement. We will update with more information from the call. The story is developing:

Tesla issued a press release for the announcement: