At Last: Tesla Giga Berlin Model Y To Begin Deliveries Tomorrow, March 22

It is expected that Elon Musk will travel to Berlin, Germany, for the event; he will in turn be joined by the German Prime Minister, Olaf Scholz, at the opening ceremony. Even though up until now Tesla had already been producing units at the Grünheide plant, that was only with the aim of completing tests and calibrations of the machinery and equipment. In order to actually produce units to be delivered to customers, it was still necessary to receive the final permits: something that, as we mentioned in other articles previously, happened last week.

Excited to hand over the first production cars made by Giga Berlin-Brandenburg tomorrow!— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022

Now - according to German media - Tesla is finally ready to start producing the first Model Y units at the Giga Berlin factory. Once the moorings have been released, the goal is to work on ramping up production to 500,000 units per year: a capacity that is expected to be doubled later, but according to sources it is a mark that will have to wait some more time due to delays in the starting of production.

In addition to cars, the Giga Berlin facility will also later have the capacity to manufacture cells and batteries. This will all happen in a factory that will directly employ 12,000 people, which will allow Tesla to reduce the current long delivery times, and that will also reduce exposure to the disproportionate logistics costs that the automotive sector is currently suffering.

It remains to be seen how the factory will coexist with its neighbors in Grünheide, Berlin, since neighborhood groups and environmentalists have warned of the risk that high water consumption could lead to loss of drinkable water access for local residents, however strange that may sound. It will be like some sort of a magnifying glass that will be monitoring the water consumption of the Giga Factory; a plant that was clearly born with problems, and that seems will have to live with them for quite a while, as per the latest information available at the time of writing this article.

You can check more information on Zeit On-line (German language).

All images courtesy of Tesla Inc.

Nico Caballero is the VP of Finance of Cogency Power, specializing in solar energy. He also holds a Diploma in Electric Cars from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, and enjoys doing research about Tesla and EV batteries. He can be reached at @NicoTorqueNews on Twitter. Nico covers Tesla and electric vehicle latest happenings at Torque News.