Leading electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla Inc. (TLSA) has handed over its first Model Y cars produced at its $5.5 billion Gruenheide plant to its customers. This marks the first European production hub by the United States based company.
The company’s founder and chief executive officer Elon Musk together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz attended the ceremony marking a moment which Musk had anticipated would have took place eight months ago.
The German gigafactory plans to hire 12,000 workers while its adjacent battery plant will become the largest employer in the German state of Brandenburg where it’s based.
At full capacity, the plant will have an annual production of 500,000 electric cars. This number is on the higher side compared to the 450,000 electric vehicles sold by its main rival in German Volkswagen Group (ETR: VOW3) in 2021.
The gigafactory also seeks to generate 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery power which will automatically surpass all other plants in the country.
On March 4th, Tesla was granted required regulatory approvals to begin production at the battery plant under conditions that it meets several conditions on issues including water use and air pollution control.
