Tesla opens its Berlin factory

[Suff]

I was surprised it opened this month. After taking 6 months to review documents, follow "the process", maintain that the thousands of pages of documents MUST be done properly, the Berlin/Brandenburg government granted an operational license whist the "interim" environmental approval still has 1 month of objection time left to run. That was a BIG departure.

They delivered 30 cars yesterday. Expectations are to start with around 1,000 vehicles per week, ramping to 10,000 vehicles per week by Dec 2022.

From now on, the stress on the European vehicle manufacturers to compete in the plug in battery EV space is ratcheted up dramatically. The Tesla Berlin site is sized to be able to be expanded to 2m vehicles per year. Close to the entire worldwide operations of Mercedes or BMW. Much larger than the German operations of most German manufacturers.

Noise about Tesla coming to Gravity started again but that is not what Tesla indicated. Tesla indicated that for the rest of 2022 and perhaps 2023, they will work on expanding and leveraging the factories they already have. Berlin from 500k to 2m. Texas from 500k to 3m-4m. Fremont from 600k to 1m. Shanghai from 1m to 2m.

On another note I saw the first dirty Tesla I've ever seen. It was white and, well, grey too. Kind of obvious. I've seen quite a few Tesla's on the road here these last 2 weeks. Not much with the other manufacturers and I know what to look for.