Tesla ‘hearts’ Lego: Exec says Lego manufacturing is awesome

As a company spearheading the charge for innovations in electric vehicles, inspiration for Tesla Motors can come from the most interesting places.

One particularly creative source of inspiration comes in the form of a familiar product that has been tickling the creative fancies of generations both young and old since 1949. That would be Lego — yes, that Lego — which is known the world over for its colorful interlocking toy bricks.

Given Tesla’s fondness for dropping pop culture references ranging from its “Maximum Plaid Mode” that serves as an homage to Spaceballs to giving its robots at the Fremont factory X-Men names, an affinity for Lego certainly doesn’t seem like a stretch.

Tesla’s admiration for the toy staple, however, goes far beyond the fun that Lego bricks provide.

While delivering a speech in Reno during the Governor’s Conference on Business, Tesla Vice President of Business Development Diarmuid O’Connell talked about how one of their employees used to work for Lego. O’Connell then went on to describe the toy maker’s manufacturing operations as serious business. When you’re building cutting edge electric vehicles as well as the world’s largest lithium-ion plant in the Gigafactory, interest in manufacturing practices is quite understandable.

“There’s something I want to tell you about Lego,” O’Connell said. “That’s a company renowned the world over for precision manufacturing.”

Tesla certainly doesn’t shy from tapping into other company’s expertise to improve its own operations. In addition to the regular cross pollination involving Silicon Valley stalwarts such as Google and Apple, Tesla’s past hires include getting a former Burberry executive for its sales operations as well as a former Formula One chief mechanic to further improve how it services its cars.

In the case of Lego, companies can learn a lot from its advanced manufacturing practices, according to O’Connell.

“I defy someone to tell me a case where they pick up a piece that wasn’t properly machined or proceed to open a pack that didn’t have all the parts needed,” O’Connell said. “That’s a testament to (Lego’s) extraordinary manufacturing process.

Apparently, everything is awesome when you’re part of the Lego manufacturing team.