Giga Berlin
Tesla has officially applied to expand Giga Berlin production to 1 million cars produced annually. The automaker confirmed it had submitted its first application to the state of Brandenburg on Wednesday, publication RBB reported on Thursday.
The electric automaker said an application for partial approval of its expansion plans has been submitted to the responsible State Office for the Environment (LfU) and relates to the expansion of its existing Giga Berlin site.
The LfU confirmed to RBB Tesla has applied to increase its annual production from 500,000 cars per year to 1,000,000, in the future. In order to achieve this, Tesla needs to build new production facilities on the existing site. Giga Berlin is far from achieving its maximum capacity of 500,000 cars produced per year. The factory currently builds the Model Y compact crossover only at this time.
Tesla also has “optimized planning and production processes in such a way that the amounts of fresh water previously used as a basis and contractually agreed are also sufficient for this expansion.” This is possible through the treatment and reuse of wastewater generated during vehicle production, said Tesla. The site sits in a water protection area and environmentalists are keeping close eyes on the Tesla factory.
There are currently over 10,000 employees at Giga Berlin. Last month, Tesla hit a milestone at Giga Berlin ahead of schedule, reaching 4,000 Model Y vehicles produced per week, which works out to an annual run rate of just over 200,000 cars.
