Tesla targets 100 more hectares for Giga Berlin

Tesla has submitted an application to the state of Brandenburg for the clearing of a further 100 hectares of forest on its Giga Berlin site. Back in the USA, the electric car manufacturer’s construction plans for its latest Gigafactory in the state of Texas have now been made public.

At the Giga Berlin site in Brandenburg, Germany, Tesla has already cleared 90 hectares of forest. Now another 100 hectares are to follow, and the company has submitted a preliminary application, as was confirmed by the Department of Immission Control in Brandenburg’s Ministry of the Environment. It is still unclear whether an environmental audit will also be due in the course of the application review, which would complicate the procedure. Tesla initially planned to clear only half of its 300-hectare site. In June, however, the company presented revised plans according to which the clearing area should cover 190 hectares.

According to Teslamag, a second new preliminary application has also been submitted but was not able to provide further concrete information on the contents. The report said that Tesla’s boss for the Giga project, Evan Horetsky, made it clear last week that this application could already be about production machinery.

Tesla’s construction progress for the Gigafactory 4 just outside of Berlin in Grünheide, Brandenburg, has so far been based solely on provisional permits made possible by the Federal Immission Control Act. According to Brandenburg’s Minister of Economics Jörg Steinbach, the final environmental permit should be available by mid-December 2020. The 406 objections against the construction project are to be clarified from 23 September.

In addition to the estimated date for the environmental permit, Steinbach also commented last week on the expected employment in the new factory. The Minister considers it possible that the factory could have up to 40,000 employees in the next ten years, depending on the market situation. For the first 6,000 of the initially planned 12,000 jobs, according to the state government, the requirement profiles are available in both production and administration.

Meanwhile, Tesla’s construction plans for the new US Gigafactory in Texas are also circulating online. These provide a preview of the planned plant, where the Cybertruck will be produced along with the Model 3, Model Y and the Semi electric truck. The visual similarity to the original plan for the Gigafactory 1 in Nevada (which is not yet finished) is striking. According to a report published last week, test production of the Cybertruck could start as early as May 2021 at the Austin factory, where construction began well after Giga Berlin. Source for this statement comes from leaked screenshots from a Tesla presentation for the city of Austin, which were published by Tesla Motors Club.

automobilwoche.de (in German), teslamag.de (production machinery), teslarati.com, electrek.co (both regarding Texas)