Tesla’s Giga Berlin has reached a new production milestone, with the 400,000th Model Y recently rolling off the factory’s production line. This milestone was reached in late September, a little more than two and a half years after the factory first opened.
This latest milestone wasn’t announced (yet) by Tesla, but rather reported by Handelsbatt, citing internal messages from September 25. According to the publication, Tesla celebrated by giving employees an extended break and free pizza.
Tesla expanded its global production capacity to Europe in 2022, with Giga Berlin opening after numerous regulatory hurdles and delays in March of that year. Production started with the Model Y Performance, but quickly expanded to include the Long Range variant within a few months.
The production ramp at Giga Berlin has been slower than anticipated, but steady. Six months after production began, the factory was building 2,000 Model Ys per week.
Just a few weeks shy of the one-year anniversary in February 2023, that number had reached 4,000 Model Ys per week, thanks in part to the addition of a third production shift, which meant cars were being built 24 hours per day. By February 2024 the factory hit a rate of 6,000 units per week, or more than 300,000 Model Ys per year.
According to Tesla’s most recent quarterly update, Giga Berlin has an installed production capacity of >375,000 cars per year.
However, Tesla isn’t stopping there. The company is expanding Giga Berlin, aiming to produce up to 1 million vehicles per year and to increase its battery production to 100 gigawatt-hours (GWh) annually.
