Tesla CEO Elon Musk flew to Germany on Friday to check in on Giga Berlin, and while he was there he made a big announcement. According to comments made by Musk while speaking to employees, the factory will build Tesla’s €25,000 next-generation car.
Soon after Giga Berlin opened last year, Tesla was already making plans to expand the factory, knowing the process will take longer than anticipated due to the amount of bureaucratic red tape and other issues that were encountered while building the first phase. Those plans have recently taken a step forward as they went to public debate, with Tesla hoping to have all of that out of the way and start the project in early 2024.
According to the plans released last year, the expansion will increase Giga Berlin’s production capacity from 500,000 to over 1,000,000 vehicles per year, and increase its battery production capacity from 50GWh to 100GWh per year. After Musk’s visit to the factory on Friday, we now know what the expanded factory will produce.
While speaking to employees at Giga Berlin, Musk announced the factory will produce the company’s €25,000 next generation car. (In case you’re wondering, €25,000 = US26,800)
#GigaBerlinBrandenburg@elonmusk announced today during his visit to GigaBerlin that a 25k € Tesla will be built here.🔥🚗 pic.twitter.com/EmdYXQAUOS
— Gigafactory Berlin News (@Gf4Tesla) November 3, 2023
This obviously won’t happen any time soon. No timeline was provided by Musk, but since the factory expansion hasn’t even started yet, it will likely be at least 2 to 3 years before we see Tesla’s next-generation car rolling out of Giga Berlin.
Tesla’s €25,000 car has been talked about for a while. We recently got a few details about it from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Musk, in which he revealed it will have a futuristic design, much like that of the Cybertruck. This next-generation car was initially planned to be built first at Giga Mexico, but those plans changed earlier this year. Giga Texas will now be the first factory to produce the $25,000 car, as this will allow company executives to keep a close eye on the project, instead of having to travel to Mexico to ensure everything is going smoothly.
