Tesla was hoping to begin production at Giga Berlin-Brandenburg before the end of 2021, but was faced with several delays in receiving the final approvals from local officials.
Based on a new report out of Germany, it looks like the process is taking longer than expected, and production won’t begin until mid-March at the earliest.
The new timeline comes from the German publication RBB, who reported on Wednesday, without citing sources, that the factory’s safety precautions are still being reviewed.
When contacted for comment about when the factory might be approved to begin production, a spokesperson for the state environment ministry stated “we do not specify a concrete date,” but we are in the final phase of the approval process.” (via Reuters).
Separately on Wednesday, Giga Berlin drone operator Tobias Lindh said that authorities are “now working on the actual permit document which will have several hundred pages.”
Lindh noted this is an exciting development and is different than the work officials have been doing over the last two years, which involved “working through more than 10,000 pages of application documents.”
While Tesla continues to wait, employees have been hard at work fine tuning the production lines to ensure that they are ready as soon as they get the green light to begin production.
Model Ys have been piling up in a parking lot outside the factory after Tesla received approval to build up to 2,000 test cars, some of which have made it to Norway and Sweden.
Tesla Model Y made at Giga Berlin has driven from Norway to Sweden
