Internship, Abuse Testing & Engineering, Cell Engineering (Summer 2025)

Consider before submitting an application:

Our internship program is for students who are actively enrolled in an academic program. Recent graduates seeking employment after graduation and not returning to school should apply for full-time positions, not internships.

International Students: If your work authorization is through CPT, please consult your school on your ability to work 40 hours per week before applying. You must be able to work 40 hours per week on-site. Many students will be limited to part-time during the academic year.

Internship Program at Tesla

We provide an experience that allows the intern to experience life at Tesla by including them in projects that are critical to their team’s success.

Multiple Locations Possible: Palo Alto, CA; Fremont, CA; Austin, TX; Reno, NV

Your application will be considered across all opportunities for the teams listed below:

Thermal Test Engineering Internship:

• Cells are the common denominator for every Tesla product. In the Abuse Testing & Engineering group, we push battery systems to their limits and beyond using specialized equipment to apply electrical, mechanical, and thermal stresses. Our goal is to provide rapid feedback to inform designs early in development, by understanding how robust systems perform under abusive conditions. We accommodate external regulations but have a strong focus on internal requirements and testing for failure. Every Tesla battery product comes through our lab, both vehicles and energy storage. Our environment is fast-paced and incredibly exciting.

Test Systems Engineering Internship:

• All Tesla products share a critical component- cells! In the Abuse Test and Engineering group, it is our job to find the electrical, mechanical, and thermal limitations of these cells to ensure products deliver top end performance to our customers and do so in a safe manner. We move fast and do whatever it takes to inform designs early in their development. This makes for an environment that is fast paced, exciting, and offers lots of opportunity to shine while solving tough problems in fun ways. We are looking for driven individuals to support the battery cell abuse team across all Tesla programs. In this role, you would be a part of a dedicated team responsible for exciting tests spanning electrical, thermal, and mechanical abuse.

High Voltage Abuse Test Internship:

• In the Abuse Test and Engineering group, it is our job to find the electrical, mechanical, and thermal limitations of the batteries and power electronics to ensure products deliver top end performance to our customers and do so in a safe manner. We move fast and do whatever it takes to inform design improvements. This makes for an environment that is fast paced, exciting, and offers lots of opportunity to shine while solving tough problems in fun ways. At Tesla the design improvement and refinement will never stop, and thus our test methods need to match to ensure that new failure modes are understood. You will work directly with the Electrical Abuse Test Group responsible for stress testing the electrical components that protect batteries such as in-house designed fuses and high voltage management systems to ensure new designs meet the Tesla standard.

Battery Propagation Resistance Test Engineering Internship:

• Cells are the common denominator for every Tesla product. In the Abuse Testing & Engineering group, we push battery systems to their limits and beyond using specialized equipment to apply electrical, mechanical, and thermal stresses. Our goal is to provide rapid feedback to inform designs early in development, by understanding how robust systems perform under abusive conditions. We accommodate external regulations but have a strong focus on internal requirements and testing for failure. Every Tesla battery product comes through our lab, both vehicles and energy storage. Our environment is fast-paced and incredibly exciting.

Abuse Test & Engineering R&D Internship:

• The Abuse Test and Engineering R&D group is primarily responsible for the destructive testing of batteries from the pack, module and cell level. We are expanding rapidly and are involved with all Tesla battery programs.

Cell Materials Engineering, Abuse Test Internship:

• Engineers within the Abuse Testing and Engineering team routinely tackle extremely difficult engineering challenges and continuously push boundaries into identifying failure modes for high voltage systems (e.g., electric vehicles and energy storage systems). Individuals will work closely with mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, thermal engineers, and firmware engineers to root cause technical issues and conduct recreation testing of failure modes. The role requires materials characterization experience in addition to utilizing skills across many disciplines (mechanical, thermal, electrical).
• Currently pursuing a degree in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Physics, or a related field
• Must have strong understanding of heat transfer, combustion and electrical
• Demonstrated successful experience with materials characterization
• Knowledge of lithium-ion batteries preferred
• Experience setting up, running, and analyzing hands-on tests and characterization
• Must be hands-on (assembly, fabrication/modification, instrumentation, wiring, electrical troubleshooting)
• Experience with CAD (Catia V5, V6 or Solidworks)
• Experience with software such as LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python, and/or other common programming languages
• Experience with electrical systems (PCB's, resistors, voltage)
• Knowledge of manufacturing methods for prototyping such as machining, welding, sheet metal forming, 3D printing