Tesla to finally electrify shuttle train service to Brandenburg factory

In September 2023, Tesla launched a shuttle train service to and from the premises of its German factory in Grünheide, which can be used by anyone - but runs on diesel. This earned the manufacturer a lot of malice. Now the switch to battery-powered trains is on the horizon. (UPDATE BELOW)

According to the Berliner Zeitung newspaper, Tesla’s shuttle service will soon be travelling electrically. The background to this is that the contract between Tesla and the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB), which operates the shuttle service on behalf of Tesla, is due to end this month and the NEB needs the diesel railcars elsewhere. The plan is to resume Tesla’s shuttle train service after a brief interruption, probably from July, but then with other vehicles, it is said. In future, battery-electric railcars from Siemens will run on the line.

The Tesla shuttle journeys will be non-stop and take around twelve minutes. The train covers a distance of around five kilometres between the ‘Erkner Bahnhof’ stop and the ‘Fangschleuse, Tesla Süd Bahnhof’ stop. The shuttle train will replace the shuttle buses that were previously in use in September 2023. According to an earlier report by ‘RBB 24’, the train commutes almost 60 times a day from Monday to Friday. This means that ‘more than 1,500 employees are brought directly to the plant site at shift changeover’ by rail.

Update 9 August 2024

Tesla has launched an all-electric train shuttle between Erkner near Berlin and the factory premises in Grünheide, which employees and people from outside the company can use free of charge. According to Tesla and the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahngesellschaft (NEB), it is the first fully electric, battery-powered train in Berlin and Brandenburg. It can transport 500 people – seated and standing – per journey.

Theresa Eggler, Project Manager at Tesla, told the German RBB: “We are particularly pleased that the Tesla train shuttle is now battery-electric because it is simply in line with our corporate mission: to accelerate the transition to renewable energies.”

Initially, the train will only travel to and from Erkner. However, once the Deutsche Bahn’s construction work is complete, it will also run once a day from Berlin-Lichtenberg, located in the north-east of the German capital.

berliner-zeitung.de (paywall, in German), rbb24.de (update, in German)