Photo: Tesla
Tesla's plans for a battery factory near Berlin are becoming more specific and production is expected to begin as early as 2022.
Tesla, along with other manufacturers, has won the right to receive EU subsidies for battery factories totaling €2.9 billion. While the company has already begun construction of a building that is expected to house its manufacturing facility, Tesla has yet to apply for approval.
However, the manufacturer's plans are becoming more specific. The well-informed industry sources said that Tesla wants to apply for a permit to manufacture lithium-ion cells in a few weeks. According to information received by Handelsblatt, this will happen no later than July. Production is slated to start in 2022, not 2023 as previously reported.
At the moment, preparations for the production of batteries at Giga Berlin are in full swing. Almost one-fifth of the hiring requests are for battery specialists. This plant is expected to create up to 1,000 new jobs and will be built on the site next to the production buildings for cars. Building a battery factory next to the car factory would be a big benefit for Tesla. This means that the batteries will be produced locally, without the waste of time, resources, and money to supply them to the car production facilities.
With the new technology—4680 tabless cells—Tesla wants to achieve a decisive competitive advantage: to bring costs per kilowatt-hour down to $50. Ultimately, Tesla CEO Elon Musk is betting that a battery factory in Germany could become the largest battery factory in the world, with an estimated capacity of 200-250 GWh. “I can even imagine expanding to 200 to 250 GWh,” Musk said. "I'm pretty sure that that would make it the largest battery factory in the world."
© 2021, Eva Fox. All rights reserved.
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About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
