Photo: @tobilindh/Twitter
Making the production of battery cells cheaper is Tesla's main goal, as it will help spread truly affordable electric vehicles to the general public. That is why the company has gone into research and development, creating a new battery cell that will meet the necessary requirements. Giga Berlin will be Tesla's first battery factory to produce new 4,680 tabless cells. The production could already begin in just two years, says Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor and Energy Jörg Steinbach.
Last month, Tesla's battery plant in Germany received preliminary approval from the Federal Ministry of Economics. The manufacturer can now prepare for construction of the world's largest battery manufacturing plant in Brandenburg.
Tesla has also successfully applied for the IPCEI funding program of the Federal Ministry of Economics, and on January 26, the European Commission approved funding for the second battery cell alliance. According to government sources, funding for the California-based manufacturer is estimated to be in the one-digit billions of euros (1B+).
And now, Steinbach has said in an interview with Bloomberg that production of battery cells at the new plant could begin in about two years, according to Cash. Until now, Tesla has avoided any specific talk about exactly when production of battery cells in Germany would begin.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has repeatedly said that the battery factory in Germany may become the largest in the world. He said that 100 GWh of annual cell production is possible for the German battery plant, but that is not the limit. “I can even imagine expanding to 200 to 250 GWh,” he said. "I'm pretty sure that that would make it the largest battery factory in the world."
For the time being, Tesla continues to pilot its new battery cell production at Fremont. However, even though this is a pilot plant, its capacity is large enough to be one of the top 10 battery cell factories in the world. But Tesla plans to ultimately move this production to Giga Berlin, where it will continue to scale the new cell production technology.
© 2021, Eva Fox. All rights reserved.
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Article edited by @SmokeyShorts, you can follow him on Twitter
About the Author
Eva Fox
Eva Fox joined Tesmanian in 2019 to cover breaking news as an automotive journalist. The main topics that she covers are clean energy and electric vehicles. As a journalist, Eva is specialized in Tesla and topics related to the work and development of the company.
