Final approval for Giga Berlin rumoured to follow this week

According to a media report, the final approval for the Tesla factory in Brandenburg should be granted on Thursday or Friday of this week. A date for the official opening and handover of the first 30 vehicles has also probably already been set.

As the Tagesspiegel reports, the opening ceremony at the factory is to take place on March 22 or 23. Elon Musk would also be on site to accompany the handover of the first 30 Model Y Performance to customers. It is not yet clear whether Chancellor Olaf Scholz will also attend the opening ceremony of the e-car plant near Berlin with around 500 guests.

In its article, the Tagesspiegel refers to the minutes of the Tesla task force last Tuesday. The meeting, which was also attended by Brandenburg’s Minister President Dietmar Woidke, is said to have lasted only 20 minutes. The result, according to the minutes, was that all sides were to “work intensively on finalizing the approval process”. The final approval is then to be granted at the end of the first week in March. It is possible that Woidke himself will hand over the permit to Tesla in the state chancellery.

In mid-February, there had still been reports that production in Grünheide could not start until mid-March at the earliest because the authorities still had to check some safety precautions at the factory. These checks are a prerequisite for final approval.

At the time, however, it was also said that it could take another few weeks from the granted approval to the actual operating permit. The current report of the German Tagesspiegel suggests that at least the Brandenburg State Chancellery is confident that the operating permit can follow the final approval very soon.

In January, Tesla had confirmed that the first Model Y Performance from Grünheide would be delivered in March. After a corresponding change in the configurator, where March was mentioned as the expected delivery date for white and black Performance models, had already pointed to such a step, Tesla itself confirmed the plan in an internal mail. If the current opening information is true, Tesla could keep its March commitment for at least a few customer vehicles.

In Texas, Tesla is apparently already one step further with the Gigafactory in Austin: According to reports, only the sales approval by the environmental authority EPA is still missing there so that the first vehicles produced there can be delivered. Here, too, Tesla is targeting the first deliveries for the end of March. The Model Ys from Giga Texas have the new 4680 battery cells, while the Model Ys in Grünheide are being manufactured with imported 2170 cells for the time being.

tagesspiegel.de (in German, paywall), teslarati.com (both Grünheide), teslarati.com (Austin)