In 2023, soon after Tesla opened the Berlin Gigafactory in Germany, Tesla chief Elon Musk announced a plan to “cover all the concrete with art.”
And this week, the automaker has shared a video (top) showing off its efforts to emblazon the factory’s exterior with graffiti, with much of the work done using a robot painter.
Vincent Krause, the workplace design lead at Gigafactory Berlin, said the ambitious project began with local graffiti artists setting to work on the factory’s concrete surfaces.
But Krause also wanted to reflect Tesla’s high-tech approach to production, so he called on the services of a “robot muralist” to continue the work.
The kit comprises a powerful computer, software capable of transforming artists’ ideas into digital designs ready for printing, and a massive graffiti printer that essentially crawls up and down walls to create the final artwork.
The robot muralist is the creation of Mihkel Joala. In the video, Joala explains that the contraption consists of two parts — the print head with up to 12 cans of paint on board, and the lifting mechanism, which uses kevlar cables. The robot also uses a couple of small propellors to give it a little bit of push toward the wall as it shoots millions of dots of paint onto the surface.
Krause said they used various designs from artists around the world while also creating some of them in-house. “We get a lot of inspiration from Berlin, but also from Tesla’s product and the factory itself,” Krause said. “All of the artworks take different aspects from the local spirit, and there’s still so much left to do. We’re far from done.”
The Berlin Gigafactory is Tesla’s first full-scale manufacturing facility in Europe. When it opened three years ago, it marked a significant milestone for the automaker’s expansion into the European market.
The factory, which produces Model Y vehicles, had faced delays due to administrative and environmental approvals, but it eventually received final approval in March 2022 before opening later that month.
