Tesla will finally challenge the prestigious German automakers on their land. After several months of delays and administrative procrastination, the Californian pioneer of the electric car obtained the green light from local authorities on Friday to start production in its first European factory. The Y models, the brand’s recent SUV, should leave the assembly lines in Grünheide, near Berlin, from the end of the month, with a ramp-up which should gradually bring production to 500,000 vehicles per year.
“This is a new chapter in our history,” said Brandenburg region chairman Dietmar Woidke (SPD), who convinced Tesla boss Elon Musk to move to his territory in 2019. he company has already made just under 3,000 hires, and more than 12,000 people are expected to work on the site eventually.
“A before and after Tesla”
It is a godsend for this eastern region, which is seen as an engine of “green growth”, thirty years after the end of communist Germany. For Brandenburg, there “will be a before and an after Tesla”, predicted its president when announcing the final authorization for the site.
However, it took more than two years and 23,700 pages of administrative documents, “the equivalent of a small truck”, to issue the necessary authorizations. In the meantime, Elon Musk, impatient by nature, had launched the construction site of his car factory, then his battery factory, at his own risk and peril, with provisional authorizations.
He will still have to wait a few weeks to launch the actual production, eight months behind schedule. Until now, he had been authorized to build 2,000 cars, but as a test. For the German administration, keeping pace with the American manager and issuing authorizations in two years was “a mammoth task”, launched Dietmar Woidke, but also “a lesson for the future”.
Sword of Damocles
However, Tesla is not at the end of its troubles. The American manufacturer first had to comply with German social rules. The IG Metal union has already launched the first works council elections at the end of February. Tesla must also fit into the German vocational training model by promising to hire between 100 and 150 apprentices per year.
Above all, a sword of Damocles still hangs above the production of Tesla models. Seized by environmental organizations, the regional administrative court must determine whether the environmental studies have sufficiently taken into account the impact of the manufacturer’s factories on the region’s water resources. Authorizations would not be challenged but contracts for the delivery of 1.4 million cubic meters of water could be.