antfer
(Antfer)
#1
exec known for his edgy style. “Giga
Berlin” as Musk calls the factory, will
be the living embodiment of that
persona. “It will be cool and fun,” he
told Fortune in a long interview in
late January, wherein he laid out his
vision for a huge push into Europe.
“I’m aiming to have it be a real gem.”
German officials had strong mo
tivation for wooing Musk: His plan
is epic. In a largely forgotten area of
former East Germany, about 20 miles
from the capital, Musk is racing to
finish a vast facility capable of turning
out, beginning as early as this sum
mer, Europeanbuilt Teslas—at a pace
he expects will reach 500,000 cars a
year by 2023. Musk also plans to add
a battery factory that will be “the big
gest by far in Europe, and one of the
biggest in the world,” he says.
No less important is the flood of
new jobs the factory will bring to
the region, beginning with “at least
20,000 people,” he says, and rising
over time to about 50,000 hires.
But as Musk has learned, the
smallest of details can complicate
the biggest of deals—and trip up
even a man who has sent rockets
(and his company’s stock price) into
the stratosphere.
As construction began on the fac
tory last June, many living nearby
expressed huge excitement that one
of the world’s most valuable compa
nies had handpicked their backyard
to launch its big move into Europe.
Yet not all locals were thrilled.
Public hearings in October drew an
gry testimony, with a transcript that
runs to 1,233 pages. Tesla’s fourth
factory, after California, Nevada,
and Shanghai, sits on 750 acres in
Grünheide, an exurb of Berlin with a
population of 9,000, amid pine trees
local authorities planted in the 1940s,
hoping to sell them as lumber. Vogel
says the area is now home to “people
who want to spend quiet retirement
or raise their children in natural ar
eas,” many of whom feel their lifestyle
is “threatened” by Tesla’s arrival.
But the greater threat has been
to creatures far less visible: two
endangered species, the sand lizard
and the smooth snake. For decades,
GO BIG OR GO HOME: Tesla’s massive new Gigafactory going up in Grünheide, Germany, sprawls over more than 4.8 million square feet.
