At 1:42 p.m. on Tuesday, Tesla boss Elon Musk handed over the first vehicle from his factory in Grünheide, Brandenburg, to a customer.

At the end of the production line, the "Model Y" rolled through the typical Tesla light shaft.

The song "I'm in love with my car" by the British rock band Queen boomed out of the loudspeakers, and several hundred fans and employees of the American electric car manufacturer cheered in the hall.

Musk, dressed unusually formally in a suit and tie, pranced around the car.

Two years and four months after he announced the location decision for Grünheide, the factory is officially in operation.

Julia Loehr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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The eccentric company boss, who had come from America the day before, spoke of a "gem" for the region.

He formulated his opening words in German: "Thank you for everything, Brandenburg, Grünheide, Germany." In addition to the Tesla supporters, numerous politicians were also present.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was there, Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens), Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke (SPD) and his State Minister for Economics and the Environment.

The Tesla factory is "a sign of the many things that are in motion in Germany," said Scholz, adding: "Eastern Germany is at the forefront industrially."

Woidke referred to the approval process, which is quick by German standards: "Tesla has given us some difficult tasks." But now the factory is "rocking".

The climate activists, who glued themselves to the access road with superglue during the opening ceremony and triggered a major police operation, were less enthusiastic.

Replacing combustion engines with electric cars does not help against the climate crisis, they argued.

Controversial construction

The construction of the factory was controversial from the start.

The area was intended as an industrial area for more than twenty years.

However, it is in a water protection area.

In February 2020, nature conservation organizations tried to stop the clearing of the pine trees for the first construction phase in court, but in vain.

When the last bat had moved, the construction work could begin.

The argument then shifted to the need for water.

Opponents of the Tesla plant fear a lack of water in the region because of the higher production rates, which the State Environment Agency has also allowed with a view to the car factory.

The local water association is also among the group of critics.

The state government believes the concerns are unfounded.

Tesla itself points out that the company needs significantly less water to produce a car than other car manufacturers.

From the same mould

At the heart of the car factory are the four “giga presses”, each of which is the size of a single-family house.

They make it possible to produce large parts of the body in one piece.

Aluminum is melted at 700 degrees.

The corresponding bars are ready in a long line in the eastern part of the factory.

Not far away, several dozen red Kuka robots are waiting to be deployed under plastic sheeting.

While production is already underway in one part of the factory, construction is still underway elsewhere.

The employees who stand at the assembly lines are mostly of a younger age.

At the point where the "marriage" takes place, when employees slowly bring the body and substructure together with the battery and the electric motor, hip-hop music is played that day.

Tesla built the factory at its own financial risk while the approval process was still ongoing.

According to the will of the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, the planned terminals for liquid gas (LNG) in Brunsbüttel and Wilhelmshaven are to be built at this “Tesla speed”.

BDI President Siegfried Russwurm also praised the quick completion: "The pace at Tesla must serve as a model for investment projects in Germany," he said.

Up to 500,000 electric cars a year

Around 3,500 employees currently work for Tesla in Grünheide.

In the medium term, 12,000 employees are to produce half a million electric cars a year.

This would make the plant in Grünheide Germany's second largest car factory after VW in Wolfsburg.

According to estimates, the company has invested almost 6 billion euros in the car factory alone.

Tesla does not comment on these numbers.

A battery cell factory is currently being built in the immediate vicinity for a similarly high sum.

The company pursues the strategy of producing as much as possible itself and not depending on suppliers like other manufacturers.

In the factory, this is also reflected in the many large shelves and stands where parts that have already been pressed are waiting for further processing.

Tesla is likely to receive around 300 million euros from regional economic development programs for the construction of the car factory.

On the other hand, Tesla withdrew the application for funding from the EU program for the construction of battery factories, although it could have expected more than 1 billion euros from it.

Tesla does not comment on the reasons.

With the opening of the factory in Grünheide, attention should now be focused more on Intel's planned chip factory in Magdeburg.

However, a construction period of four to five years is expected there.