Tesla receives the "Okey" from German authorities for the expansion of Giga Berlin

The American manufacturer has received the green light for the expansion of the Gigafactory located in Grünheide, near Berlin. The state environmental agency has granted a partial permit, which will allow the company to increase its production capacity at this site.

According to German authorities, this first partial permit includes, among other things, the construction of a new large hangar to house additional production units, as well as the modification and optimisation of the production facilities already built.

For the time being, however, it is not clear how many more vehicles Tesla will be able to produce at Giga Berlin once this expansion is complete. In the second-quarter 2024 report, Tesla cited a current production capacity of 375,000 vehicles per year at Giga Berlin, where only the Model Y is currently assembled. However, its maximum capacity is around half a million units, and the American manufacturer has long said that its ambition is to eventually reach one million vehicles.

It is important to note that this partial permit only affects the areas that Tesla already owns, so the forests surrounding the plant will not be affected.

Tesla once again runs up against the well-known European bureaucracy

Obtaining this permit has not been an easy task, on the other hand. Tesla submitted the expansion application to the State Office for the Environment on 15 March 2023 to begin the expansion of the plant. That is, more than a year and a half ago. At the same time, a request was made to divide the expansion project into several partial permit sections, as it was considered that this procedure should be more effective.

This first partial permit, now granted, only confirms the approval of work that had already been started earlier, since Tesla received a preliminary approval in July to begin construction of the large hangar and optimise the existing facilities ahead of schedule. However, had the emissions control approval process produced a negative result, the American manufacturer would have had to halt the work already begun.