Construction of Tesla’s manufacturing plant in Germany is now underway, and on Tuesday night, July 14, CEO Elon Musk tweeted an image of how it’ll look when it begins operating in 2021. The facility will assemble Tesla’s Model Y crossover, as well as batteries and powertrains for its broader line-up of vehicles.
Giga Berlin pic.twitter.com/UXQMUVTWXf
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2020
The enormous “Berlin Giga,” located about 20 miles (32 km) south-east of the German capital, will come topped with solar panels from which the site will draw much of its power, and, if Musk gets his way, could also include “an indoor/outdoor rave space on the roof.”
Might be an indoor/outdoor rave space on the roof
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 15, 2020
The billionaire entrepreneur earlier this year posted a poll on his Twitter account asking if any of his 36.8 million followers were interested in seeing a “mega rave cave” beneath the new manufacturing plant, to which 90.2% of the 773,000 respondents hollered hell yes!
Construction protest
Work on preparing the 92-hectare site for building the Berlin Giga suffered a brief interruption in February 2020 when environmental protesters persuaded a German court to order a suspension of the work so it could properly review concerns that the facility could damage nearby wildlife and drain the area’s local water reserves. But a short while later the court rejected the protesters’ claims and allowed the clearance work to continue. Tesla isn’t out of the woods yet, though, with the company still awaiting the necessary environmental permit before it can proceed with construction work in earnest.
Recent reports suggest the facility will employ more than 10,000 people when it opens for business, with workers split between three daily shifts.
In the same way that it’s currently scouting locations for its upcoming U.S. Gigafactory for the manufacture of its Cybertruck, Tesla considered various locations for its first European production facility, with Musk finally opting for Germany toward the end of 2019.
“Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding, for sure — that’s part of the reason why we are locating our Gigafactory Europe in Germany,” Musk said at the time, adding, “We are also going to create an engineering and design center in Berlin because Berlin has some of the best art in the world.”
If he gets his way, the city may also become notable for hosting a particularly lively rave space.
