Tesla Gigafactory in Germany Gets Conditional Green Light After Several Delays

Tesla’s gigafactory is crucial to CEO Elon Musk's ambitions to vanquish European market leader Volkswagen.

Advertisement
By Reuters | Updated: 7 March 2022 14:23 IST
Highlights
  • Tesla is in talks with numerous parts suppliers to source parts locally
  • VW to spend EUR 2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,729 crore) on a new factory
  • Tesla's next challenge will be to scale up production quickly

Kickstarting production in Germany means Tesla can deliver its Model Y cars to European customers faster

Photo Credit: Annegret Hilse/ Reuters

Tesla received a conditional go-ahead for its German gigafactory near Berlin on Friday, the state of Brandenburg said, ending months of delay for the EUR 5 billion (roughly Rs. 41,822 crore) landmark plant.

The gigafactory, which is crucial to Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk's ambitions to vanquish European market leader Volkswagen, was initially supposed to open last summer.

Germany's largest automaker has the upper hand in Europe, with a 25 percent share of electric vehicle (EV) sales to Tesla's 13 percent.

Advertisement

Brandenburg state premier Dietmar Woidke told a news briefing that the development marked "a big step into the future", adding that the Tesla plant would be a major industrial and technological driver for Germany and the region.

Advertisement

Around 2,600 of the plant's expected 12,000 workers have been hired so far, unions said last month, and Tesla is in talks with numerous parts suppliers in the region to source as much as possible locally, lowering waiting times and costs.

Underlining the intense competition facing Tesla, Volkswagen said on Friday it would spend about EUR 2 billion (roughly Rs. 16,729 crore) on a new factory near its Wolfsburg headquarters to make the Trinity, the first of a new generation of electric vehicles for the German carmaker, with construction due to start next year.

Advertisement

Friday's 536-page conditional building permit for Tesla does not mean the US-based EV pioneer can start production right away. It must first prove that it fulfils numerous conditions, including in water use and air pollution control.

Only then will Tesla get its long-awaited operating permit and actually start rolling out the 500,000 battery-powered vehicles it wants to produce each year at the new plant, located in the small community of Gruenheide.

Advertisement

Another hurdle to secure the site's water supply emerged late on Friday, when a Frankfurt Oder administrative court sided with environmental groups who had challenged a licence given to a local water utility to supply the Tesla site.

But the court said the procedural errors made in the licensing decision could be remedied by the water utility, leaving open the door for the water supply arrangement to be salvaged.

Kickstarting production in Germany would mean Tesla can deliver its Model Y cars to European customers faster and more cheaply, after meeting orders in Europe from its Shanghai factory in recent months as it awaited approval for the site.

Tesla plans to show that it meets the imposed conditions within the next two weeks, Brandenburg's environment minister Axel Vogel said, while objections can be filed over the next month.

Tesla's next challenge will be to scale up production as quickly as possible, which Musk said at a fair on-site in October would take longer than building the factory.

Local environmental groups have long feared that the plant will negatively impact local habitat. Numerous public consultations, focusing primarily on that aspect, delayed the process, with Musk expressing irritation on multiple occasions over German bureaucracy.

The factory, which Tesla has begun constructing under pre-approval permits, will also include a battery plant capable of generating more than 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) per year — outstripping European competitors.

Batteries for cars produced on-site will initially come from China, Musk said, but he intends to reach volume production at the German battery plant by the end of next year.

© Thomson Reuters 2022


What should you know about MWC 2022? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.
 

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.

Advertisement

Related Stories

Popular Mobile Brands
  1. DeepSeek-OCR Could Change How AI Reads Text From Images
  2. Realme GT 8, Realme GT 8 Pro With Ricoh GR Optics Launched: See Price
  3. Samsung Galaxy XR Headset Launched With Hand Tracking at This Price
  4. iQOO Neo 11 Key Specifications Tipped Ahead of Launch in China
  5. These Are the 5 Biggest OxygenOS 16 Features You Should Know About
  6. iQOO 15 Launched With Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5, 50-Megapixel Cameras
  7. OnePlus 15 Battery Capacity, Charging Speed Teased Days Ahead of Launch
  8. Apple's M5-Powered MacBook Pro 14-inch, iPad Pro Now Available in India
  9. Redmi K90 Pro Max Key Features Revealed Ahead of Launch on October 23
  10. OpenAI's AI-Powered Web Browser Is Here: Know What It Can Do
  1. Redmi K90 Design, Key Features Revealed; Confirmed to Debut With 7,100mAh Battery
  2. Poco Pad M1 Spotted on TDRA Website, Could Debut Globally as Rebranded Redmi Pad 2 Pro
  3. Samsung AI Glasses Confirmed to Launch in Collaboration with Warby Parker, Gentle Monster
  4. iQOO Neo 11 Confirmed to Come With 2K Display and 7,500mAh Battery; Colour Options Tipped
  5. MacBook Pro 14-inch (2025) and iPad Pro With M5 Chip Now Available in India: Prices and Other Details Here
  6. Samsung Galaxy XR Headset Launched With Hand Tracking, Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 SoC: Price, Specifications
  7. Samsung Galaxy XR Headset Launching Today: Know Price, Features, and Specifications
  8. Smartwatch Breakthrough Brings GPS Accuracy Down to a Few Centimetres
  9. SpaceX Launches 10,000th Starlink Satellite, Sets New Annual Record
  10. Scientists Discover New Seismic Clue to Predict Mount Etna Eruptions
Gadgets 360 is available in
Download Our Apps
Available in Hindi
© Copyright Red Pixels Ventures Limited 2025. All rights reserved.