Tesla will be taking Giga Berlin offline next week to make some upgrades to the plant that will increase production efficiency and help lead to a third production shift being added later this year.
Giga Berlin will be shut down starting on July 11, 2022 and lasting for two weeks until July 22, 2022. During the downtime, upgrades will be made to the production lines to increase efficiency and reduce the amount of time a vehicle is required to be stopped at each station along the line. Each vehicle is currently required to be stationary for 90 seconds. With the upgrades, that time will be cut in half to 45 seconds.
The upgrades will provide a big boost to the factory’s production figures, which recently set a new milestone by building 1,014 cars in a single week. Tesla hopes to build up to 500,000 cars at the factory per year once it reaches full production.
A rumour that has appeared in media recently is that Tesla will be adding a third shift after these upgrades have come online. Giga Berlin currently operates with two shifts. The first shifts starts at 6:30am an the second shift ends at 10:30pm local time.
While Tesla does plan to add a third shift, this will not take place until later this year. According to our sources, the third shift will likely start in the fall, most likely around September or October. This will further boost Giga Berlin’s production by having the production lines running 24 hours per day.
Another recent development at Giga Berlin is that Tesla has raised the wages of most of its workers at the factory. As we first reported last week, salaries were increased 6% after IG Metall, Germany’s leading automotive labour union said Tesla’s wages were too low compared to similar positions at other automakers.
Tesla will also be making upgrades to boost production at Giga Shanghai this month. The Model Y production line will see most of its production halted for the first two weeks of July, followed by the Model 3 line in the second half of the month.
TeslaMag first reported on the closure in May, and Drive Tesla was able to verify the story with our sources.
