Tesla has informally told the local authorities (Land Brandenburg/Ministry of Agriculture, Environment and Climate Protection) that the automaker is up to setting up a battery manufacturing plant at Gigafactory Berlin. This was revealed during the meeting of the Brandenburg Committee on Agriculture, Environment and Climate Protection yesterday (video below in the German language).
At this point of time when Tesla has not placed a proper application for the new battery plant at Giga Berlin, no one is sure of the exact location of its building in this mega manufacturing complex (latest progress video below).
Since most of the basic structures for other functions like the paint shop, Giga Casting machine area, and the drive unit building are coming the finish, the next one is the battery production plant.
My co-author at CleanTechnica, Alex Avoigt first pointed out this information in his tweets yesterday.
Tesla acquired a German battery pack manufacturer ATW Automation last year. This ignited strong speculations that the U.S.-based automaker wants to locally produce the batteries needed for European Tesla cars, later on, Elon Musk confirmed the rumors.
It is also unclear as of now if the ATW team will work at Giga Berlin, or only cells will be manufactured at the factory and packs will be produced at the existing ATW facility, which is very far from the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin.
CEO Elon Musk started the main hiring process by personally recruiting the top 25 engineers for Giga Berlin (aka 25 guns). Later Tesla officially started the hiring campaign for battery engineers at the Tesla German plant and also showcased how the 4680 cells will be produced at this facility in an interesting video.
Tesla aims to start Model Y production at Giga Berlin later this year, this will definitely give a tough time to the VW ID.3 and ID.4 with the pricing set according to a locally produced car rather than the ones imported from the U.S. or China.
YouTube Channel The Wolfpack Berlin takes us on an amazing drone video ride tour of the Gigafactory Berlin as of 6th March last week, let’s witness the latest developments taking place here.
Update: According to the German news site Handelsblatt, Tesla is planning to formally move the application for the cell/battery factory at Giga Berlin in July 2021.
Previous chapter in Giga Berlin: Tesla Gigafactory Berlin’s roof is almost complete, get the details and video
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