Tesla’s Gigafactory in Germany Ready to Run
Tesla’s factory was officially opened on Tuesday in the presence of CEO Elon Musk and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. Musk ceremoniously delivered the first Model Y cars to customers.
Before Giga Berlin obtained a final license from regional authorities earlier this month, Tesla had achieved something unheard of in recent German corporate history.
It almost completely built a factory big enough to truly deserve the Gigafactory brand, relying only on a long series of about 20 different preliminary licenses.
There was always the chance that final permission might not be granted, which would surely wreak havoc and force the company to remove everything it had built. It was a huge risk, but CEO Elon Musk just went for it.
Preliminary licenses allowed Musk’s company to start the project with the extraction of wood from neighboring forest areas about two years ago. Then came the construction of the actual factory segments, which were eventually filled with state-of-the-art technology, including industrial robots.
Tesla started construction work on the site in Grünheide near Berlin in May 2020, meaning that only around 22 months have passed since then. If it were up to the chief executive, the factory would have been inaugurated much earlier. Musk said delays along the way were attributable to notorious German bureaucracy.
Environmental concerns remain
The Germans, however, felt that the project moved forward at lightning speed. For some, it progressed too quickly, as they felt – despite several rounds of public hearings – that their environmental concerns, especially fears of excessive water consumption at the plant, had not been adequately addressed.
The most recent delays were due to unfinished evaluations of Tesla’s concepts for wastewater treatment, as well as contingency and emergency plans. This included how the company would deal with any potential spills of hazardous chemicals.
“After a year, Tesla decided to also build a battery factory there, which meant the approval process had to start from the beginning – so the whole process didn’t take long considering the difficult issues involved,” said Hubertus Bardt, from the German Economic Institute told DW.
By comparison, Tesla’s Shanghai factory, which is about the same size as Giga Berlin, took just 15 months to complete. In terms of granting licenses for comparable projects, it was a record even by Chinese standards, as local authorities admitted in 2019.
Source: DW
Lori Barajas is an accomplished journalist, known for her insightful and thought-provoking writing on economy. She currently works as a writer at 247 news reel. With a passion for understanding the economy, Lori’s writing delves deep into the financial issues that matter most, providing readers with a unique perspective on current events.