The manufacturing process of a Tesla. Photo: https://www.tesla.com/en_eu/giga-berlin
Tesla is reported to expand its factory in Berlin by 100 hectares, including a train station and logistics and storage areas. This report was broadcast at the information day event on September 11 at Grünheide, Tesla’s first European electric vehicle assembly plant in Europe. 500 people attended the open-door event and put forward many questions, such as Tesla’s logistic concept, water supply, protection of environment and water bodies, planned battery cell production, and planned expansion of the area.
Transportation
According to Tesla, a shuttle train from Erkner to the factory will run from the spring of 2023. It is expected to run 40 times per day with each train having a capacity of 400 passengers. The train station will stand 550 meters away from this new track. “And then it’s just a 30-minute train ride to Berlin. We’re actually gonna be building a train station, where you can literally just—ironically for a car company, you know, you could just take the train. You can also take your car. That’s fine, too,” Musk said. This will also help to relieve local transportation.
Water consumption
The US carmaker also wants to take further efforts to reduce water consumption. According to its statements, the average water consumption of the auto industry is 4 cubic meters per car. However, abundant European statistics show that the average water consumption in this region has decreased by 30.5% since 2006. As of July 2022, automakers use 3.76 cubic meters of water per vehicle. Tesla currently consumes 2.2 cubic meters of water per vehicle.
Logistics and storage space
Against the backdrop of global supply chain problems and the war between Ukraine and Russia, the current just-in-time logistics, which ensures that the item arrives at the warehouse at the moment the manufacturer can ship it to the customer, is no longer possible to employ. While in this way the carmaker can minimize inventory, reduce delivery time, and eliminate any wastage, there must be a new method to deal with today’s challenges. That’s why Tesla needs additional logistics and storage space. Before, the carmaker planned to expand its freight station, but now it starts to worry about volatile supply chains.
Production expansion
Since it was put into production this year, the factory can build 1,000 vehicles a week and the annual production will be a tenth of 500,000 vehicles. In May, Tesla submitted an application to expand the infrastructure on-site. To this 500,000 annual production end, an amendment to the development plan is necessary and a vote is set on 29 September. So there are so many uncertainties waiting for the US carmaker.
Post time: Sep-15-2022