Tesla has received no subsidies for Grünheide plant so far

Tesla has likely not yet collected a cent of the subsidies for its vehicle plant in Grünheide in Brandenburg, according to local media. Tesla models have been rolling off the production line in Grünheide for a year now.

According to the Brandenburg Ministry of Economics, “Tesla has not received a single cent of funding so far. A state aid notification procedure is currently underway in Brussels for Tesla’s application.” Whether and when money will flow to Grünheide, therefore, depends on the EU Commission.

Tesla had already submitted its application for funding in November 2020. According to the Berliner Zeitung, the fact that so much time has passed since then is primarily due to the fact that Tesla has “changed the funding amount applied for very often”.

As previously reported, the carmaker does not want to take advantage of EU funds for battery cell production in Brandenburg. Tesla CEO Elon Musk waived the roughly one billion euros because he did not agree with the funding conditions. On Twitter, the Tesla CEO literally wrote: “We learned our lesson from the $465 million US Department of Energy loan received in 2010/2011 – onerous conditions exceed the value of the money received.”

That’s part of the reason why battery production in Germany has been delayed. Since the manufacturer has been promised extensive subsidies in the USA under the Inflation Reduction Act, Tesla is focusing on the factory in Austin, Texas, for the time being. However, the expansion of the production facility in Germany is still planned.

Tesla’s Brandenburg gigafactory has had a rocky start, with reports of the lack of an alarm system, as well as an investigation regarding illegal dumping allegations by the state. Meanwhile, Tesla is also expanding production in China and is already working on building their next gigafactory in Mexico, as well as another factory in Indonesia.

bz-berlin.de (in German), teslarati.com