Giga Berlin expansion plans rumoured to be on ice

Tesla has reportedly shelved plans to expand its Grünheide plant beyond its initially planned capacity of 500,000 cars per year for the time being, according to a media report. Instead, its own cell production is apparently to be pushed ahead first.

According to information from the German publication Automobilwoche, Tesla CEO Elon Musk “now wants to put all his energy into the start-up of car production and cell production”, according to company sources. When the expansion of the current Gigafactory is completed, Grünheide will have a production capacity of 500,000 vehicles per year.

According to the report, the further expansion plans, which have now allegedly ended up back in the drawer, envisaged a “mirroring” of the current plant – i.e. the construction of an identical but mirror-inverted plant next to the existing production. Such an approach is not unusual, as it would allow some areas to be shared by both production halls.

However, this has been postponed indefinitely, according to the portal. Instead, according to current plans, only the press shop is to be expanded. However, the report does not provide any further details on the cell production that Musk now allegedly wants to prioritise.

Regardless of the alleged expansion plans, Tesla is currently still busy manufacturing the 2,000 pre-production vehicles from a pre-approval decision. A new drone video shows hundreds of Model Ys on the Grünheide site – apparently test vehicles. Production now seems to be moving faster. At the moment, Tesla is clearly focusing on the production of black Model Ys; very few white-painted vehicles can be seen. Initially, only white and black Model Y Performance are to be delivered from Grünheide, with the other colours to follow from May.

As Tesla still does not have an environmental permit, these vehicles may not be sold. This is standard practice for pre-production vehicles built under pre-approval. When exactly the final permit will be issued, remains open.

There is also news about the Gigafactory Texas in Austin: Elon Musk announced in a tweet that the Gigafactory Festival will take place in Texas on 7 April.

automobilwoche.de (Grünheide, in German), teslarati.com (drone video), twitter.com, teslarati.com (Texas)