Tesla has officially received environmental approval to start production at Gigafactory Berlin – which was expected, as we announced earlier this week – but also, as expected, there are several warnings that will prevent Tesla from starting official production.
The battle is not over.
After months of delays, German reports said earlier this week that Tesla was expected to finally receive final environmental approval to begin production at Gigafactory Berlin later this week. Environmental approval for the giant factory has met with much resistance with concerns ranging from deforestation to water supply and more.
There were several obstacles for Tesla that prevented the company from obtaining the approval, which was considered the last regulatory step needed to start production.
Yesterday we reported that a German newspaper reported that Tesla had already received approval and that there would be a press conference on Friday with more details – they also warned that it could not allow Tesla to start production as previously thought.
Today, the details are published along with a 536-page conditional building permit, but the word “conditional” is important here – there are about 400 conditions that Tesla must meet to begin production.
The carmaker said it plans to cover all of them over the next two weeks; however, there are some things that seem to be in a different timeline, such as another public notice, which will be published in two weeks, and then the comments will be accepted for a month:
The notice of approval will soon be published in the Official Gazette of the Province of Brandenburg, in local dailies and on the Internet. The notice of approval is available for two weeks from the day of the publication in the municipality of Grünheide (Mark), Erkner, the Spreenhagen office and the administrative headquarters of the Oder-Spree district in Beeskou, as well as the State Environmental Service in Frankfurt (Oder). inspection off. The period of one month during which objections to the approval can be picked up starting at the end of the exhibition. At the same time, the notice of approval is published on the Internet on the EIA portal of the state of Brandenburg, where it can be seen until the end of the objection period.
However, it seems that Tesla and German officials do not think this should delay the start of production.
The documents reveal that Tesla has been approved to produce 500,000 electric vehicles a year at Gigafactory Berlin, along with several other approved production processes, including battery cell production. They also reveal that Tesla has already hired about 3,000 workers at the plant.
Although the battle to start production at Gigafactory Berlin is not over, it seems that Tesla is at home.
To see how huge this undertaking is, German officials reveal that the application documents – expert opinions and statements – consist of more than 23,700 pages in 66 files.
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