After opening at the end of March, it took almost three months before Tesla was able to report the first milestone for its German Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin: for the first time, 1000 Model Y units were produced within a week, the company announced in mid-June. Since then, rumors of further increases have been heard again and again, and on Saturday the next round number became official: in the past week, 2000 Model Y were produced in the German factory, Tesla announced again via Twitter.
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The electric car factory near Berlin should have contributed at least a five-digit number of Model Y units to Tesla's total production in its second full quarter. The Q3 figures for the whole world were published on Sunday after the Grünheide report: deliveries remained below the high expectations, but Tesla production rose more than analysts had predicted to 365,823 units.
A partially staffed third shift was due to start at the German factory this month, according to earlier information from teslamag.de, but those plans appear to have been delayed. "We just don't have enough people", was recently heard from people close to the factory. In the meantime, Tesla is said to be in the process of hiring additional staff for the Gigafactory in Grünheide through temporary work companies.
With the 2,000 Model Ys now reported within a week, two-fifths of the interim target of 5,000 per week set by CEO Elon Musk have been achieved. A further increase by a factor of 2.5 by the end of the year, as the Tesla boss announced at the end of July, is likely to be difficult given the shortage of staff. In addition, the new milestone was probably reached last week with an additional shift on Saturday, which has not been worked on regularly so far. Calculated per day, production in Giga-Berlin Grünheide would not have doubled since mid-June: after 200 Model Y/day it would have been around 360/day.
In the fourth quarter, the German Tesla factory is now to produce 51,000 Model Y units, the Reuters agency reported at the weekend, citing internal plans. That would be about twice as many as before and an average of around 4000 pieces per week. In the third quarter of 2023, the Gigafactory is then expected to produce 90,000 electric cars, i.e. to have come significantly closer to the previously approved capacity of 500,000 Model Y units per year. From the factory in Texas, which is so far behind the Germans, Tesla expects a little more with 101,000 electric cars produced in Q3 2023, according to the report.
Source: teslamag.de
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.
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