Berlin When Elon Musk announced the first European Tesla factory in Grünheide near Berlin on November 12, 2019, there were still many pine trees in the Brandenburg sand. Just over two years later, the US tech pioneer’s Gigafactory, which costs six billion euros, is already a reality.
The electric car manufacturer will start delivering the first vehicles this Tuesday. A big event is planned with Tesla boss Musk and high-ranking representatives from federal and state politics. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) will go to Grünheide, as will Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck (Greens).
Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) also wants to take the opportunity to review the past two years of construction. “It was a mammoth task, and I think we’ve all done a really great job here,” Woidke told Handelsblatt.
Musk’s decision to choose Brandenburg as the location for his first European electric car factory sparked euphoria among many at the end of 2019. New industry, new jobs, up to 500,000 e-cars per year: The settlement was one of “the largest investments in the history of our country,” Woidke said enthusiastically at the time. Now that the factory is officially starting, Woidke is even hoping for a signal effect for other investors. “Tesla switched on the spotlight, so to speak, and turned it on to Brandenburg and East Germany.”
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The head of government even sees the new federal states as a preferred investment location. “We are currently experiencing a trend reversal,” says the SPD politician. “The location of eastern Germany has become much more attractive for investors.”
Woidke: “East Germany is hungry for industrial settlement”
The economist Oliver Holtemöller sees a trend reversal primarily in the fact that low labor costs are no longer given priority as a locational advantage in eastern Germany. “Eastern Germany can only catch up further in terms of labor productivity if new jobs are created for well-qualified people with above-average wages,” says the Vice President of the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), the Handelsblatt. The settlements of Intel in Magdeburg and Tesla in Grünheide are “an important step in this direction”.
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Woidke cites two reasons why investors are tending more towards East Germany: Almost all large companies now have their own climate targets, which they can only achieve if they use renewable energies in production. “The East can deliver here,” says Woidke. “On average, we have a higher expansion of renewable energies in eastern Germany, i.e. the energy of the future.”
For Tesla, too, renewable energies were “a central argument for settling here with us,” says Woidke. “Tesla produces 100 percent green electricity, so it needs a lot of renewable energy.”
The prime minister mentions the different investment mentality in Germany as another important point. “East Germany is hungry for industrial settlement,” he said. There is a “clear difference” to the old federal states. “There are significantly more reservations than here.”
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The Tesla settlement in Grünheide, 35 kilometers southeast of Berlin, is an example for him. “We have proven that even with a somewhat complicated German permit law, such a large investment can be realized in little more than two years.”
The approval process for the car factory was opened on January 3, 2020. Two years, two months and one day later, on March 4, 2022, the state government finally gave the go-ahead for the construction of the Gigafactory. This completes the immission control approval process, provided that Tesla meets the last requirements. The approval notice includes the production of up to half a million vehicles per year and battery cell production.
Suggestions for improvement for a new permit law
Musk originally wanted to start production in Grünheide in July 2021. However, the approval process was delayed because Tesla added, among other things, the construction of a battery factory in the application for the plant. This required the critics to be heard again.
“It took us half a year to get the approval,” says Woidke in retrospect. The background to this is that according to the applicable law, the approval documents have to be reinterpreted if the project changes, and the approval process is reset to virtually zero. “We should urgently change that,” warns the SPD head of government.
“We have to say goodbye to developing, planning and submitting a project – and then approval is only given after three or four years,” says Woidke, setting out the goal. “That is no longer up-to-date.” He announced that he would analyze the Tesla project “quietly” and submit suggestions for improvement to the federal government for a new permit law.
The Prime Minister sees the group as a kind of driving force. “Overall, the Tesla project should encourage us,” he says. “If someone looks back on the history of Brandenburg many years from now, they will realize that there was a time before Tesla – and one with Tesla,” Woidke is convinced.
>> Read here: Head of the employment agency praises Tesla – “The pay is just amazing”
The group has a “large share” in “that we have had value chains in the country again since 1990”. For example, BASF is expanding its Schwarzheide site in Brandenburg, the battery specialist Microvast has come to Ludwigsfelde, and the Canadian raw materials company Rock Tech Lithium is planning to build a plant in Guben to produce battery-capable lithium hydroxide for use in electromobility.
Intel is building two chip factories in Magdeburg
The Mercedes e-Sprinter will also be produced in Ludwigsfelde in the future. “In addition, there are close connections to research and scientific institutions in the region,” says Woidke. The settlement of the American chip group Intel in Magdeburg “has at least indirectly something to do with Tesla,” believes Woidke.
Intel announced last week that it would invest 17 billion euros in the Saxony-Anhalt state capital and build two new chip factories there – the largest investment in Saxony-Anhalt, as Prime Minister Reiner Haseloff (CDU) emphasized. 3,000 jobs are to be created in the plants. The start of construction work is planned for 2023, with the start of series production four years later.
On Tuesday, March 22, the first electric cars produced in Grünheide are to be handed over to customers.
(Photo: dpa)
This Tuesday, the first Type Y cars produced in Grünheide are to be handed over to customers – presumably by Tesla boss Elon Musk himself. That also has a certain tradition, says Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach (SPD), who also attended the event wants to participate. “When a gigafactory goes into operation, the first cars are handed over in the presence of Elon Musk.” That was also the case with the Tesla factory in Shanghai, for example.
In Shanghai, the first customers received their China-built electric car in early 2020 – in the presence of Musk. At that time, the Model 3 vehicles were driven up one after the other on a stage and presented to the buyers, who then took a seat on the back seat and were driven away by a chauffeur.
Tesla now has four production sites worldwide, including Brandenburg. The fact that the approval notice for the plant in Grünheide and the opening of the factory coincide so closely is due to the fact that Tesla pushed ahead with the construction of the plant through early approvals and at its own risk.
Water supply secured for Tesla factory
Again and again there were reservations and complaints. Environmental groups and local residents continue to fear negative consequences for the environment and water. Part of the Tesla site is in a water protection area.
Tesla had always dismissed the concerns and reduced projected water use. Most recently, there had been renewed turmoil about the factory’s water supply. The responsible water association only announced on Thursday that the water supply for the first stage of expansion was secured. The country had previously agreed to higher water production.
>> Read here: “Elon Musk is a total workaholic,” says Brandenburg’s Economics Minister
There is enough water for Tesla, emphasizes Woidke. For further needs, there are plans to bring in water from other regions. “The worries about not enough water are unfounded.” Woidke also points out that it has long been known that additional drinking water resources are needed in the Berlin-Brandenburg area.
The discussion has been going on for at least 15 years and is now coming to a head because there has been a massive influx in recent years. More and more people from Berlin, but also from all over Germany, are moving to the Berlin area. “It is all the more annoying that it is often presented as if Tesla is the cause of water problems.”
In fact, Tesla is a company that attaches great importance to ecological issues and has continuously reduced water consumption during the approval process, says Woidke. The company is not sitting back, but is working on partially achieving a kind of water recycling economy. “Tesla wants to be a pioneer and can thus become a role model for many German companies.”
Tesla is a kind of role model, even for IG Metall boss Jörg Hofmann: In contrast to the German manufacturers, Elon Musk has the entire relevant new value chain under control, Hofmann told the Handelsblatt. Both on the subject of semiconductors, “where he masters the chip design himself and where VW and others are currently crawling up with difficulty, as well as the subject of battery cells”. This gives the company a depth in future value creation “where the others are lagging behind”.
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