Elon Musk Lets Out His Frustration After Tesla Is Once Again Forced To Stop Construction At Giga Berlin

In the past few years, Tesla has been growing vehicle production at a breakneck speed. In the whole of 2022, Tesla has delivered 1,310,000 vehicles and in the last 3 months of the year, Tesla was able to deliver 405,000 giving the EV maker a run rate of over 1.6 million vehicles a year.

And for 2023, Tesla has guided to deliver 1.8 million to 2 million vehicles. As compared to 2018 when Tesla delivered 245,000 cars, this year is expected to be well over 8X growth in just 5 years. And even more impressively, Tesla is achieving this growth in the midst of a global parts shortage that has forced legacy automakers to cut production by as much as 50%.

However, despite Tesla’s incredible success, the EV maker doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Tesla is currently ramping up production at two new factories on two continents and is also looking to significantly increase production at another two operational plants.

Related news: Tesla Quietly Made a Game-Changing Shift in Production and Delivery

Of Tesla’s ambitious expansion plans, the first factory to begin vehicle production was Tesla’s new gigafactory in Grunhiede Germany. Tesla initially hoped to start producing the refreshed Model Y at Giga Berlin in 2021.

However, bureaucratic red tape coupled with the global parts shortage had forced Tesla to delay Giga Berlin’s volume production by 6 months to April 2022. Currently, despite the delays, Tesla has started Model Y production at Giga Berlin and as of the end of last year has reached a production run rate of 150,000 vehicles a year.

Although significant, Tesla was able to achieve this production run rate at Giga Berlin only after undergoing a tedious environmental review process.

The Giga Berlin approval process has been marred by objections from environmental groups with dubious ties to German auto OEMs. Tesla has also been forced to redo Giga Berlin’s public hearing process due to a clerical mistake.

However, when we thought the Giga Berlin saga has finally come to a close, today Tesla was ordered to halt the construction of a solar panel array the EV maker was planning to build over the factory’s vehicle parking area.

And the reason for this stoppage was that Tesla needed approval before digging 1 meter into the ground to set up concrete blocks to support the solar array. And making matters more complicated, Giga Berlin is situated in a water protection area.

Which has prompted environmental groups to support the halt of construction. “It is confirmed that the monitoring of the construction site in the water area is completely inadequate, and Tesla can apparently do what it wants. It was a political mistake to set up the factory in the water protection area.” commented A representative of the Association for Nature and Landscape in Brandenburg.

This situation is yet another example of the countless bureaucratic hurdles Tesla had to jump through to make progress at Giga Berlin. And Elon Musk has chimed in to show his frustration with the construction halt by simply responding “sigh” in response to a Drive Tesla Canada article reporting on the issue.

Sigh— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 10, 2023

Having said that, there appears to be some good news as authorities in charge of the matter have expressed that Tesla could soon restart construction as the depth of the concrete pillars is too shallow to warrant an environmental review.

Currently, construction still seems to have been halted, however, we will be sure to keep you posted as we learn more about the situation. Until then, Make sure to visit our site torquenews.com/Tesla regularly for the latest updates.

So what do you think? Hopeful Tesla can restart the solar array construction soon? What do you think Tesla should do if there are further delays? Let me know your thoughts down in the comments below.

Image: Courtesy of Tesla

For more information check out: Tesla Model Y Inventory Falls To Only 7 Vehicles In The Entire US, Down 99.5% Since Price Cuts

Tinsae Aregay has been following Tesla and The evolution of the EV space on a daily basis for several years. He covers everything about Tesla from the cars to Elon Musk, the energy business, and autonomy. Follow Tinsae on Twitter at @TinsaeAregay for daily Tesla news.