Musk is one step closer to its goal of 1.4 million units this year.
Text | Qian Boyan
At 9 a.m. German time on March 22, as Musk stepped on the red carpet in a cheer, Tesla's second super factory overseas, the Berlin factory, was officially put into operation.
The heavyweight guest at the ribbon-cutting ceremony was undoubtedly German Chancellor Scholz.
Although Scholz's German speech made Musk standing on the sidelines can only smile politely and "confusedly", Musk's excited selfie and social media to show off his current German are enough to show that Musk is very satisfied with the Berlin factory built in two years.
In contrast, in the eyes of traditional giants such as the BBA, Tesla, which builds a factory in front of its home, is undoubtedly a catfish in the market, and the Berlin factory is a "declaration of war".
A wedge that breaks into the Continent
For many years, Munich, Stuttgart and Wolfsburg are the only three centers of the automotive industry in Germany. In the Berlin region, which owed too much money during the forty-year Cold War, even the literati could only give it a "poor, but sexy" label. But today, almost no one can deny that Berlin, with its Tesla factory, has been able to wrestle with the BBA's headquarters.
According to the existing plan, the Berlin plant with an investment of 5 billion euros is expected to have an annual production capacity of 500,000 units, and the production models will be model Y and some Model 3 models. However, the area occupied by this part of the factory that has been put into production is actually less than one-third of the land area purchased by Tesla, which also means that Tesla has left a sufficient margin for long-term planning.
In fact, in October last year, Musk announced that the second phase of the Berlin factory plan includes a power battery factory with an annual production capacity of 100 GWh, which is mainly responsible for the production of Tesla's own 4680 batteries, that is, new batteries with a diameter of 46 mm and a height of 80 mm. The cell is expected to be put into production after 2024.
Although the production line of Tesla's Berlin plant has been started since the end of last year, according to general experience, its capacity ramp-up phase will continue for several months.
Tesla has not yet announced the actual capacity of the Berlin factory, but it can still be roughly estimated by the number of actual employees at the plant. According to Musk's plan two years ago, the Berlin factory will directly create 12,000 jobs, and with the optimization of production lines and the introduction of more advanced manufacturing processes, this number will eventually be set at 7,000 jobs. According to local labor agencies, at least 2,500 employees have now entered the Tesla factory, which means that at least one production line is close to full capacity, equivalent to the current annual production capacity of 200,000 to 250,000 vehicles.
Unlike the Shanghai Gigafactory, which focuses on the Model 3 model, the Berlin plant will clearly use the Model Y as the main model from the beginning. An important part of the factory's opening ceremony on March 22 was Musk personally delivering 30 Model Y high-performance versions for 67,000 euros to the first German users.
Tesla's financial report released at the end of January this year showed that the profit margin of Tesla's automobile business is steadily improving, and the lack of production capacity has become the biggest constraint on Tesla's further development. Tesla's annual production of 936,000 units in 2021 did not meet the target of 1 million vehicles set at the beginning of the year.
As early as October 2020, Tesla, which has tight global production capacity, opened the vehicle export business of the Shanghai factory, and the first batch of Model 3 export targets are European countries represented by Germany. In July last year, as the Capacity of the Frimont plant in the United States also reached its limit, the Shanghai plant began exporting model Y to Europe for the first time.
Now, with the Berlin plant officially put into operation, the shanghai plant and the second factory in China, which is in progress, will radiate the Asian market, and the basic production capacity of the Berlin plant to radiate the European market will also be officially formed.
Twists and turns
In addition to the difference between the main production models and the radiation market positioning of the Berlin factory and the Shanghai factory, a bigger difference is the difference between the difficulty of landing and the completion time.
Perhaps because of the successful experience of the Shanghai factory being built in less than a year, Musk boasted about Haikou when he suddenly announced on November 12, 2019, that the European super factory would be located in Berlin, and it would take only about a year to succeed. But in fact, Musk clearly underestimated the old-fashionedness of the Germans and the bureaucracy characteristic of the Europeans.
The first of these is the famous "green terrorism" of the German environmental group.
In the eyes of environmentalists and animal protectors, not only does the Tesla plant need to cut down a large area of 92 hectares of forest, which has ecological impact on species such as ants, bats and snakes in the forest, but also the annual industrial water consumption of at least 4 million cubic meters (the estimated 18 million cubic meters of full capacity) has also raised local concerns about ground settlement.
The "well-armed" environmentalists began demonstrating several demonstrations at the construction site and in the heart of Berlin two years ago, before proceeding to take the entire project to court and successfully suspend the construction schedule in the spring of 2020 by the beginning of the bird breeding season in March.
The environmentalists' "unreasonable teasing" quickly provoked a huge reaction from Tesla and even the local government, accusing the group of not only ignoring the fact that electric vehicles themselves are an important part of the energy transition, but also ignoring the pulling effect of Tesla factories on the weak economy of the old East Germany region. Moreover, this so-called ecological forest is actually just a man-made forest planted on a wasteland that was blown up after World War II.
However, what makes the local government feel "dumb and eat yellow lotus" is that in order to attract Tesla and Musk as soon as possible, the government agency bypassed the relevant environmental protection bill through the so-called "social welfare" from the beginning, directly opened up the provisional approval qualification for Tesla in the spirit of the special affairs, and tried to block the demands of environmentalists through administrative means. Not necessarily compliant operations naturally make lengthy legal proceedings inevitable. In fact, it wasn't until February 13, ten days ago, that Tesla regularized all temporary permits and plugged possible loopholes in the law.
Second, Musk and Tesla, who are accustomed to being relocated by local governments, do not prepare accordingly in many details. For example, the old East Germany region is inseparable from Tesla, and dealing with the Brandenburg state government (the Location of the Berlin factory is administratively subordinate to the neighboring State of Brandenburg), Musk himself's first reaction when the approval of the permit is blocked is usually not to actively communicate with the local government, but to criticize directly on social media or directly cross the level to find the federal government in Berlin.
On specific environmental protection issues such as the large reliance on groundwater extraction for industrial water, Tesla did lack a corresponding plan at the beginning, and the additional 100 GWh power battery factory was also rushed after the EU launched the subsidy plan of the "European Battery Alliance", and there was no detailed report in advance.
In addition, BMW had considered building a new plant in the area more than two decades ago, but it was also because of the slow approval process that eventually cost the factory in Leipzig. If you add to this the black history of Berlin-Brandenburg International Airport, which has been built for more than two decades and cannot be completed, Tesla, which has learned enough from the past, is obviously not ready to deal with difficulties.
Even at the March 22 celebrations, unrelenting environmentalists sat quietly in the open space in front of the factory, even though no one cared about them anymore.
Counter-offensive against the "Old World"
Musk, which already owns the Berlin plant, is also one step closer to its goal of 1.4 million units this year. For the "old" BBA, Tesla, which has opened to the doorstep, is undoubtedly equivalent to "kicking the pavilion".
Even the advanced production process that German car companies claim to be a housekeeping skill seems to have been compared to the new Tesla Berlin factory.
According to the introduction at the main entrance of the Berlin factory, tesla only needs 45 seconds to appear a Model Y after the completion of the production capacity climb, while this number is 60 seconds to 70 seconds in German car companies. Among them, the advanced manufacturing technology that Tesla strives to promote mainly includes 4680 battery, CTC technology and one-piece casting body.
Among them, the 4680 battery cell is the third generation of battery used by Tesla after the 1865 and 2170 batteries. Complemented by the 4680 battery is the Body Battery Integration (CTC: Cell to Classic) technology, which directly mounts the battery cell or module on the body and uses the body structure as the battery pack shell. In addition, the Berlin factory is also the first time to use rear body integrated casting on the Model Y, Tesla claims that the one-piece casting will reduce the number of model Y body parts by 370, reduce the total weight by 10%, and increase the battery life by 14%.
If the manufacturing process problem is only the impact within the auto industry, then the surge in Tesla sales that may be brought about by the Berlin factory may be the most feared by BBA.
For example, the best-selling Model 3 standard version currently costs 42,990 euros in Germany, and it takes until November to place an order immediately, while the long-endurance and high-performance versions of the Model 3 are priced at 56,990 euros and 61,990 euros respectively. For comparison, Volkswagen's ID.3 costs 36,960 euros and the ID.4 costs 38,915 euros.
Just as tesla ushered in a wave of price cuts in the Chinese market after the Shanghai factory was put into production, it can be expected that at least the model Y will increase in the short term, and the current model Y long-range version and high-performance version are priced at 56990 euros and 63990 euros respectively. Due to the commissioning of the Berlin plant, Model Y's current waiting time for pick-up has been reduced to one and a half months.
It is almost certain that as the capacity of the Berlin factory gradually ramps up and the Model 3 joins the production sequence, the gap between the ID family and the Model Y and Model 3 will widen.
As for Mercedes-Benz and BMW, which are more than half a beat slower than the Volkswagen Group, models such as its EQ series and iX, whether in 2021 or 2022, have not appeared on any sales list of german electric vehicles, with the only exception being the tenth "old guy" BMW i3.