On Tuesday, Tesla officially opened its Gigafactory in Germany, the company’s first manufacturing facility in the critical market of Europe.
The first assembly plant in the region aims to build 500,000 electric vehicles a year. In addition, reports stated that Tesla targets 2,000 vehicle outputs in its first few weeks of serial production.
It has a value of $7.00 billion, which is in Grünheide, a coal town in Brandenburg. Its location is within the commuting distance of the capital.
Tesla CEO Elon musk also handed over the first 30 European-built Teslas to customers during the event.
The leading automaker also announced plans to build its Model Y sport utility vehicle at the plant.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended the opening event. He lauded the gigafactory as the future of the car industry.
However, the facility has faced opposition from environmentalists. Correspondingly, several protesters gathered outside the facility on Tuesday to raise their concerns.
They worried that the plant would use too much water. They also cited the number of trees removed to build it.
Previously, Musk anticipated beginning output from the factory eight months ago. However, the firm grappled with licensing delays and local concerns around the plant’s environmental impact.
In line with this, Tesla needed to service European orders from Shanghai while waiting for its German license.
This move added to rising logistics costs as the business struggled with industry-wide chip shortages and other supply chain disruptions.
Eventually, it received final approval from local authorities last March 4 to begin production.
The government asked the automaker to meet conditions ranging from water use to air pollution controls.
On the same day, regulators urged a federal judge not to let Musk back out of an agreement. This contract requires the monitoring of the Twitter use of the billionaire.
Tesla to keep up with high EV demand
Accordingly, Tesla struggles to keep up with the high demand for electric vehicles. There are long delays for Model Ys and certain Model 3s in different parts of the world.
Last week, the company temporarily halted production at its Shanghai plant due to Covid-19 cases resurgent in China.
This shut-off resulted in the limited production of Chinese Model 3 and Model Y vehicles for at least two days.
Consequently, the demand for EVs remains significant in Europe. The gigafactory in Germany is extremely important for the firm to expand globally.
The new facility followed the opening of its Gigafactory 3 plant in Shanghai in late 2019. The business also initiated production for the Model Y at another plant in Austin, Texas.
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