According to local German media reports, Tesla has applied to the city of Glenheide to expand the area of its German Gigafactory by one-third, that is, to build another 100 hectares of factory area east of the factory.
As Tesla's fifth factory in the world, the Glenhead factory was officially put into operation in March this year. Under full production, the annual production capacity of the factory can reach 500,000 vehicles. Tesla said the Glenhead plant will be the highest-capacity all-electric car factory in Europe, mainly for the production of the company's compact SUV, the Model Y.
Glenhead Mayor Arne Christiani said Tesla already owns 300 hectares of land for its car and battery factories, and the company plans to build a cargo terminal, logistics area and parking spaces on the extra space.
Christiani added that the city council will consider Tesla's application next week and believes that, as with the first phase of the project, formal approval of the company's expansion plans could take about a year.
The Glenhead plant took two years to build, a record-breaking speed in Germany. The reason lies in Germany's cumbersome local legal procedures. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has complained about this many times. In fact, Tesla is taking a huge risk by starting construction before all the permits are in place. Prolonged protests by some local residents and environmental groups over concerns that the Tesla factory will affect the water supply has led to repeated delays in the start-up of Tesla's German factory.
Tesla's Gigafactory in Texas also officially opened last month, and analysts expect Tesla to deliver about 1.5 million vehicles in total this year. On Tesla's first quarterly earnings call of the year, Musk said the company remains confident that deliveries will increase by at least 50% from 2021 despite the supply chain crisis and the coronavirus pandemic.
To be honest, the production efficiency of the Chinese is indeed very high. At present, the output of the Shanghai factory is the sum of the German factory and the Austin factory. I think this simple production link should be handed over to the most efficient producers, so as to generate the greatest profits. And the wages of the Shanghai factory are far lower than the wages of the German factory.
Of course, there are concerns about the lockdown caused by the new crown pneumonia, then Tesla can go to other Chinese cities similar to Shanghai. They only block a certain city, so it will be more efficient to build factories in a decentralized manner.
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