Musk Announces Tesla’s 4th Gigafactory Location: Model 3 wins Midsize Car of the Year in Germany

Elon Musk made an appearance on German’s Auto Bild TV for the 2019 Golden Steering Wheels Awards (Die Verleihung des Goldenen Lenkrads 2019) showcasing the best cars of the year. While receiving an award, Musk announced that the location for the next Gigafactory will be in Berlin, Germany.

The first European Gigafactory will be situated near the newest airport in Berlin named the Brandenburg International Airport (BER). The airport is still under construction with reported plans for a 2020 opening date. Since the new Berlin airport location is already infamous for construction delays, Musk joked that the new Gigafactory would “hopefully” be completed more swiftly in comparison

Tesla’s site as of November 12th, now shows career opportunities in “Remote, Germany” for Gigafactory 4.

The Tesla Factory is located in Fremont, California, with Gigafactory 1 and 2 both based the United States in Sparks, Nevada and Buffalo, New York respectively. Gigafactory 3 is the first overseas factory in is located Shanghai, China.

In a tweet in June, Tesla’s CEO shared a potential teaser into the location of the European factory. The reality is, however, better- Berlin is in! The speed at which Gigfactories are popping up worldwide is impressive. Gigafactory 3, near Shanghai, that can build 150,000 Model 3 sedans a year, according to Tesla, was build in just 168 working days! 

Musk has previously estimated that it will eventually take 100 Gigafactories to build the components necessary in order to run the entire world on sustainable energy. Naturally, as he also pointed out, Tesla alone could not build that many, and plans are for, eventually, an initial twelve to be built. So, 8 more in the pipeline now that #4 in Berlin has been announced. At the time of completion the first Gigafactory was the second largest building in the world by volume, with the largest footprint at 1.9 million square feet, hence “Giga”.

Musk flew his private jet to Germany on November 11th, curiously missing the successful launch of 60 Starlink Satellites – and now we know the main reason why he did. Shortly after the award cerimony, a couple of tweets went live. The first, announcing the award, and more importantly, the second detailing the initial plans for the factory’s uses: building powertains and vehicles, starting with the Model Y and, of course, batteries.

The Model 3 has been, by almost any measure, a spectacular success. Now, with the Model Y looming on the horizon, and the mysterious Tesla pickup truck set to be unveiled on November 21st at the Tesla Design Center in Hawthorne, CA, 2020 is sizing up to be another make or beak year for Tesla and Elon.

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