We just learned over the last few days that Tesla has ramped production at their Gigafactory in Texas to 1000 vehicles per week, which is not that great, it’s 52000 vehicles per year. Now they’ll continue to ramp up, but what about Gigafactory Berlin? what’s going on there?
Well, we just received the word; that there will be a significant increase in production, pretty soon. Thanks to one change tesla are about to make and that includes manpower. Now ford is firing people, well tesla is hiring. Now, what am I talking about here? I am going to get quickly to the point. Tesla is about to introduce a third shift in Gigafactory Berlin in December. Tesla says they’ll introduce a third shift in Grünheide this year. This information was directly confirmed by German politicians. So it’s not a rumor it’s true. GigaTexas has reached an important mark in its production ramp-up as well. First, to Germani drive, Tesla says they’ve heard about the introduction of the third shift in December of 2022. So it’s going to be here within a few months. With the third 8-hour shift added to that factory, we should expect around a 33% increase in production as at the moment the plant only runs from 6:30 am to 10:30 PM. So in other words they will have shifts working from 10:30 PM more than likely until probably around about 4:00 in the morning. Statements by Brandenburg’s Minister of Economic Affairs, Jörg Steinbach suggest that the information from ‘Drive Tesla’ is accurate. “Since the end of May, the operation has already been running in two shifts and by the end of the year there will then be three shifts”, said Steinbach in a press release recently. Now apparently Steinbach was really important and instrumental in the settlement and approval of the Tesla factory in Brandenburg. He’s a pro-Tesla person he’s a fan of the company and obviously, he wants things to happen. He wants economic development to happen in his area, in his state and he pushed for the tesla factory to open which was really good for the company. So with this third shift production is expected to increase to 5000 vehicles per week by the end of 2022. That’s a lot more than what we’re seeing in Texas right now. 5000 per week puts production at 2,60,000 vehicles per year. That’s only the Tesla Model Y. So we are going to see a lot more tesla model y being sold in Europe in the first quarter of 2023. Obviously, production in China has increased massively as well, meaning Chinese vehicles (model y) going to Europe will support those numbers. What does that mean? That means the model y would be the number 1 best-selling premium vehicle in Europe in the first quarter of 2023. It’s almost a guarantee because it’s very very close behind the Audi A3 and more than likely it’ll be the best-selling SUV or crossover-type vehicle, for the first half of next year in Europe. Now this 5000 number; I’m not just plucking it out of the air this was the figure given by Drew Baglino, who’s Tesla senior vice president of the power train and engineering and he said this during the company’s second-quarter earnings conference call. In other words, he said that that would be the production but obviously now we know how they will go about achieving that; hiring more people. Currently, gigafactory Berlin produces around 1500 model Ys per week since the official start of serious production in March, Tesla has tested a few different production processes in Grünheide and it’s also expanded its model variety initially only the model y performance was being built, obviously the most expensive variant but now long range models are also coming off the production line in Germany. According to reports a single engine basic model has already been built on a test basis and there is also speculation the use of BYD blade batteries will come in this standard range variant. it’s going to be a cheaper model, so it’s good news for people in Europe and it’s going to have access to a cheaper standard range model using BYD blade batteries, L. F. P. better chemistry and the other good thing about that is it means that you can have the option of getting a battery pack that’s going to last a lot longer. You may get a lot more confident in that battery pack, however, the really intriguing thing about this battery pack is the fact that reports are, ‘this has 450km of range with only a 55-kilowatt hour pack’. Now if that is the case that means the energy density that BYD blade battery packs are much higher than the energy density in BYD blade battery packs in the rest of BYD cars. It suggests that we see a significant improvement in the LFP battery chemistry that BYD is using. Now hopefully that’s true. We don’t know for sure that that’s the case, we’ll find out soon. Right now all Teslas coming out of the factory are still painted only white and only black. Tesla was planning on adding a couple of different colors; silver metallic and deep crimson and apparently those vehicles will be coming within the next month. Now the German tesla plans to reach the milestone of 1000 model Y production per week back in June. So it’s a bit ahead of Gigafactory Texas. In the meantime, Texas opened a little after the Grünheide and it’s reached this production right now according to observers. Now, how do we know this? Well, tesla employees actually shared a photo of an internal ceremony. The employees involved signed a plug with the tesla logo and the number 1000 suggesting that they’d gotten to 1000 per week. In Texas only the model y is being built as well however there are 2 variants, there is the moral Y standard range which comes with a structural battery pack and 4680 cells, in addition, Tesla is now manufacturing the model Y long range with 2170 cells. So customers now in that area, that location, and around you know all the obviously the other southern states in the US have access to 2 different models coming from Gigafactory Texas. What about China? Well as many of you are aware, Tesla has just hit production of 23,000 vehicles per week coming from Gigafactory Berlin that’s crazy, that’s insane as a result the wait times have decreased drastically for Chinese consumers, for Chinese locals, and remember in China if you buy tesla right you cannot resell it within a certain period of time otherwise you have to pay a fine. The reason Tesla did this is because a lots of people buying Teslas and reselling them used, on the second-hand market to make a profit. Basically gouging the next customer of the vehicle and you know putting a bad taste into the tesla owners now. So I think that’s a good move from Tesla.
That’s the latest update on the 3 Gigafactories. What about the fourth Gigafactory? Well obviously, yes, Tesla is negotiating with the Canadian government to build a Gigafactory in Canada. It’s going to be near a nickel mine, where I just interviewed the owner of that mine. I’ll put a link below this article.
