Tesla founds subsidiary for Gigafactory 4

Tesla has founded a European public limited company called Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg SE for the operations of its planned plant in Grünheide, Brandenburg. Meanwhile, in China, rumour has it that Tesla already produces 1,000 Model 3s per week at its plant in Shanghai.

Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg SE was first reported by local media with reference to the German Federal Gazette. The new company belongs to the Dutch subsidiary Tesla International B.V., and has its headquarters in the city of Brandenburg an der Havel and not in Grünheide, where the plant is to be built.

According to the report, Stephan Werkman is to act as managing director of the new SE, while the Dutch Tesla manager Harpet von Dijk is to serve on the board of directors. The company’s purpose is to “design, import, distribute, sell, maintain and repair electric vehicles” and to deal with energy storage and solar systems.

Tesla reportedly plans to invest a total of around four billion euros in Gigafactory 4. Construction is expected to start in 2020, and the first Model Y will roll off the assembly line at the end of 2021. In the first stage, the Gigafactory is designed to make 150,000 vehicles per year; later it could be expanded – according to the latest rumours, it could also be built with its own battery cell production.

A quick glance at China shows how rapidly Tesla can ramp up production. Production of the Model 3 for the Chinese market is scheduled to start there in the new Gigafactory 3 near Shanghai in mid-October. By the end of the year, Tesla wanted to reach the mark of 1,000 vehicles per week – and has now reportedly already managed to do so. At least one Twitter user reported this with reference to “multi[ple] of his sources”.

Rumor: Now Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory GF3 weekly production rate reached 1000 units of MIC Model 3 from multi of my sources. $TSLA #Tesla #China #GF3 pic.twitter.com/3UWrjWrN6g

— Vincent (@vincent13031925) December 9, 2019

Drone photos taken last week had shown 155 vehicles on a parking lot outside the factory. Apparently, this grew to 270 vehicles over the following 24 hours. The photo now published on Twitter shows over 500 vehicles. However, the company’s production target has not been officially confirmed.

Update, 11 December 2019: In the long run, Tesla apparently plans with significantly higher production than the 150,000 vehicles announced for the first expansion stage: As the German boulevard newspaper Bild reports, planning documents show that, in Grünheide, Tesla eventually wants to build up to 500,000 electric cars each year. According to these planning documents, up to 10,000 jobs are to be created with the new plant. This figure was already mentioned briefly in November, but the Brandenburg state government spoke of only 3,000 and later up to 8,000 jobs.

Initial sources in German: welt.de (paywall), golem.de, vision-mobility.de,

Update from 11.12.2019: reuters.com, insideevs.com, bild.de (in German with paywall)