Because of Gigafactory: Tesla supports lawsuit against the federal government

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There is hardly a building project that German politicians and the authorities support as benevolently as Tesla's electric car factory in Grünheide.

Numerous politicians, from Federal Economics Minister Peter Altmaier (CDU) to Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD), boast of their good contacts with Elon Musk.

People like to adorn themselves with their relationships with the Tesla boss.

Up to one billion euros flows from several funding pots.

But the US group of all people is now on a course of confrontation with German politicians.

Despite the subsidies and preferred approval procedures, Tesla supports a lawsuit against the German government that Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) filed in early March.

Ironically, the DUH, which has enjoyed a dubious reputation since the dispute over diesel driving bans.

In a ten-page letter to the Berlin Higher Administrative Court, which WELT has received, Tesla expresses its support for the content of the lawsuit against the federal government.

The Brandenburg subsidiary of the US group introduces itself in the letter as "Amicus Curiae", who comments on the procedure, although the German procedural rules do not recognize such a role at all.

"Amicus Curiae" means something like "friend of the court".

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For the political push against the federal government, the company of US billionaire Musk has lofty goals: Coping with climate change is an extremely urgent global challenge, write Musk's German employees.

With the energy transition, Germany “made an important contribution” and is also committed to “converting its automotive industry”.

In striking contrast to this, "the German approval and planning processes stem from a time when these concerns appeared less urgent," the letter says.

This scares off "necessary investments in clean energy projects and infrastructure and makes it practically impossible for Germany to achieve its climate targets".

Tesla is awaiting final approval

Tesla made the connection with its own project in Brandenburg clear right from the start.

Thanks to the Gigafactory in the forest near Berlin, with its targeted production capacity of 500,000 electric cars, “around 15 million tons of CO2 emissions on Europe's roads can be avoided every year”.

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Delaying approval by just one month would "lead to over a million tons of additional CO2 emissions," write the Tesla executives.

Eliminating unnecessary delays and accelerating the final approval decision will therefore help Germany achieve its goals as set out in the Federal Climate Protection Act.

Tesla also complains in the letter that “16 months after the application for approval there is still no schedule for issuing the final approval” of the factory in Grünheide.

"This result is particularly irritating, since the fundamental admissibility of the project has been examined and confirmed by several courts," it continues.

Several decisions by administrative courts on the Tesla factory are cited, including those of the Berlin Higher Administrative Court addressed in the letter.

The US automaker joins the general complaint about the digital backlog of German authorities.

The fact that a large part of the document exchange still takes place in paper form even decades after the entry into the digital age is "an enormous waste of time and resources".

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Digitization should therefore be mandatory, demands Tesla.

This also applies to public participation in decision-making.

Meetings in large halls rewarded “volume instead of substance”.

Instead, the experiences with digital processes are positive.

The claim has hardly been taken into account so far

But instead of criticizing all of this in talks with politicians and officials, Tesla chooses the affront of supporting a DUH lawsuit against the government, of all things.

On March 9th, the Environmental Aid filed a complaint with the Higher Administrative Court in Berlin, which at that time was neglected.

It requires the federal government to “comply with the climate targets in the energy, industry, building and agriculture sectors” (file number OVG 11A22 / 21).

Such a “third party statement” would play no role in the proceedings, according to the court.

So what Tesla has to say about this shouldn't matter to the judges.

At DUH, too, they are not sure what to think of the unexpected support from the US automaker.

The statement by Tesla was "noted with interest," says managing director Sascha Müller-Kraenner.

When it comes to environmental aid, it is believed that Tesla is hoping for a positive effect on its own approval process for the factory in Grünheide.

So far, Tesla has been building in Grünheide at its own risk, if the approval is not granted in the end, the entire factory would have to be demolished again at Tesla's expense.

"I cannot imagine that the process can be accelerated significantly with letters of support like this," says Müller-Kraenner.

In principle, the Americans welcomed the investment project in Brandenburg, but everything had to be in order when it came to the approval, and of course the environmental protection requirements had to be complied with.

By no means all of the demands that Tesla makes in his letter coincide with the interests of Deutsche Umwelthilfe.

The electric car manufacturer proposes a fundamental distinction between whether a project is a "sustainable" or a "non-sustainable" project.

In the case of sustainable projects, the approval processes should then be tightened and accelerated.

Public participation should also be restricted.

Tesla distrusts environmental aid

This cannot please the DUH in particular, which regularly takes legal action against projects on behalf of the public.

"Under no circumstances should civil society's opportunities to participate", says DUH boss Jürgen Resch.

"I'm not sure whether Tesla has the same goal as us," says his colleague Müller-Kraenner.

To determine which projects are sustainable and which are not, one could use the EU taxonomy, for example, which has long been discussed in Brussels, writes Tesla.

Can a car factory like the one in Grünheide really be viewed as a sustainable project?

Yes, they believe at Tesla, you just have to take into account the products manufactured there.

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At this point, one of the contradictions in Tesla's ten-point plan becomes clear: approval procedures should become faster and less bureaucratic, but at the same time the company is proposing additions that have the opposite effect.

The EU taxonomy is considered a bureaucratic monster, the technical appendix for the implementation of the reporting rule is no less than 593 pages.

And whether a project is sustainable cannot be read directly from the data.

Further criteria are required for this.

In order to make a fundamental distinction between good and bad building projects, new regulations would first have to be created.

Taskforce removes obstacles

It's surprising that Tesla feels badly treated at all.

German politicians courted the company long before the decision in favor of the Grünheide location, and since then a separate task force in Brandenburg has been trying to remove every obstacle to the construction of the Gigafactory as quickly as possible so that cars can actually start in July of this year Grünheide can be built.

It would be completion in record time, there would only be a year and a half between the announcement in November 2019 and the start of production.

The fact that the approval process for the gigafactory is seen as fast compared to other projects is primarily due to Tesla's "unprecedented willingness" to "take financial risks in particular and go beyond the legally prescribed measures," the letter said.

Other companies are less willing or not even able to do this - which is slowing down the fight against climate change.

The German government is not surprised by the Tesla advance.

According to WELT information, the US automaker had its lobbyists in several affected federal ministries warned that a corresponding catalog of demands was being planned.

It had already been noticed in the past few months that Tesla was stepping up its efforts to protect the landscape politically.

Musk's people have long been sitting at the table in top-level talks with, for example, Minister of Economic Affairs Altmaier - and occasionally ousting traditional German carmakers.

It is doubtful that anything could change in the basic support from German politics.

The planned factory is too important.

Nothing should change in the planned funding of billions.

In secret in government circles, Tesla is even right on some points.