Tesla CEO, Elon Musk has stated that the company aims to deliver the first vehicles from its new Berlin facility in December, but that bulk production would take longer. The company targets making between 5,000 and 10,000 electric vehicles every week at the factory.
According to Musk who spoke during a festival hosted at the site on Saturday, the plant would start producing Model Y automobiles in November or December.
Until a battery facility in Germany is constructed, the company would likely get batteries from Tesla’s operations in China, he added.
What Musk is saying about production
Musk told a cheering audience at a festival at the plant site, many of whom livestreamed the speech on social media, “Starting production is nice, but volume production is the hard part. It will take longer to reach volume production than it took to build the factory.”
He said volume production would amount to 5,000 or “hopefully 10,000” vehicles per day, and battery cells would be made there in volume by the end of next year.
Musk had earlier revealed plans to launch more Tesla products in Europe next year, including a solar roof and a self-driving car.
While his visit marks the end of the factory’s construction, Tesla is still waiting for final approval for the project, which is key to the company’s European development ambitions as Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG, and BMW AG expand their electric vehicle lines. The factory will create new employment in Germany, which lost much of its heavy industry during World War II.
What you should know
- Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg is the company’s first production plant in Europe, as well as its most advanced, sustainable, and efficient facility to date. It will produce hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles and millions of battery cells this year, according to plans.
- The company is presently seeking people with a wide range of skills and expertise—no prior automotive experience is required.
- Tesla has stated that while FSD is meant to conduct trips without the need for driver interaction in the future, it is not currently capable of making Tesla cars self-driving.
- According to Tesla’s third-quarter 2021 report, 241,300 electric vehicles were delivered in the quarter. During the three-month period ending September 30, 2021, Tesla produced 237,823 cars, according to its report. Its cheaper midrange vehicles, the Model 3 and Y, accounted for 228,882 vehicles out of that total.
- Tesla anticipated manufacturing 300,000 cars in the first nine months of 2021 in its Shanghai facility, according to reports.
