Elon Musk announces next Tesla Gigafactory in Berlin

Berlin, Nov 13 (IANS) After Shanghai in China, Elon Musk has chosen Berlin as Tesla’s next Gigafactory outside of the US. During an awards ceremony here on Tuesday, Musk said Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in the Berlin area.

“There’s not enough time tonight to tell all the details. But it’s in the Berlin area, and it’s near the new airport,” ,” Musk told Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess.

Tesla is also going to create an engineering and design centre in Berlin because “I think Berlin has some of the best art in the world,” TechCrunch reported Musk as saying.

“Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding and that’s part of the reason we’re locating our gigafactory Europe in Germany,” Musk said.

Musk later took to Twitter. “GIGA BERLIN. Will build batteries, powertrains & vehicles, starting with Model Y”.

Tesla has unveiled its first Model 3 made-in-China at Gigafactory 3 in Shanghai.

Tesla has been expected to focus on Model 3 production at its Shanghai automotive factory, where it mulls producing as many as 3,000 vehicles per week next year.

Tesla Shanghai Gigafactory is first wholly-owned foreign auto factory in China.

Last month, the automaker confirmed that it has produced full vehicles at Gigafactory Shanghai as part of its trial production.

“We are already producing full vehicles on a trial basis, from body, to paint and to general assembly, at Gigafactory Shanghai. We have cleared initial milestones toward our manufacturing license and are working toward finalizing the license and meeting other governmental requirements before we begin ramping production and delivery of vehicles from Shanghai,” the company said.

Additionally, the company’s CEO Elon Musk has recently announced that he will unveil Tesla electric pickup truck dubbed as ‘Cybertruck’ on November 21 at an event in Los Angeles.