San Francisco (AFP)

The high-end electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla will open a giant factory in the suburbs of Berlin, announced its boss Elon Musk Tuesday, the fourth after those of Nevada, New York and Shanghai China.

"I have an announcement that will probably be well received," he said after receiving the "Golden Volant" awarded by the newspaper Bild, and before revealing the long-awaited name of the victorious European country.

This plant "will build batteries, engines and vehicles, starting with Model Y," he later said on Twitter.

On stage, the billionaire boss praised the German engineering, "extraordinary", "one of the reasons we are going to set up our mega European factory in Germany".

The Berlin plant will also include an engineering and design center, because "Berlin has some of the best works of art in the world," he added.

Tesla accounts for 30% of the European battery electric car market, according to Matthias Schmidt, an analyst specializing in the automotive industry.

Asked about Germany's delay in electric vehicles, Elon Musk replied: "I do not think Germany is very late."

"It's always more difficult when there is still a lot of dynamism and infrastructure in place around old technology," he continued. "When we started at Tesla, everyone thought we were crazy."

- Faster than the airport -

"This announcement is good news for the automotive industry in Germany," commented Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, professor at the Automobile Research Center at the University of Duisburg Essen. "Competition has always been faster and better, so it's good news for Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW." Elon Musk's decision will accelerate electromobility in Germany faster than 100 summits organized by Chancery. "

The European Tesla factory will be located near the "new airport", said Elon Musk, causing some laughter in the audience, because the "Berlin-Brandenburg" should have been inaugurated in 2012, but its opening has been postponed sine die because a multitude of defects, particularly in terms of fire safety.

"We must definitely move faster than the airport," admitted the billionaire boss.

A location "surprising", recognizes Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer, "but not extravagant" because although this choice will probably cost the US group in terms of land prices or energy costs, "Berlin also has the stamp that goes well with a high-end brand.Nobody can imagine Tesla in Poland or Ukraine ".

The date of 2021 was mentioned for the beginning of production in this factory, but the expert "do not believe it", because the manufacturer must "balance his finances" and that the Chinese factory "is clearly a priority" .

- Hologram instead of the steering wheel -

Tesla has recently returned to profitability, after two quarters in the red, and has renewed its promise to deliver between 360,000 and 400,000 new cars in all this year.

He also welcomed the production tests carried out in the new giant factory in Shanghai (about 865,000 square meters), built in ten months and an annual production capacity of at least 500,000 cars.

This plant "was almost 65% cheaper (...) to build than our entire model 3 production system in the United States," said the group, whose objectives are to continue to increase sales volumes and control its costs to be sustainable profitably.

Production of the Model Y crossover is scheduled to begin in the summer of 2020 in all its plants.

Many experts, however, doubt that the automaker of Silicon Valley fulfills another of its promise: a completely autonomous car, without driver, from next year.

Last April, Elon Musk announced "with a high degree of certainty" the launch in 2020 of a reservation platform for "+ autonomous + robots-taxis" (Like Uber, but without drivers).

The founding boss had already received a Golden Steering Wheel in 2014. "The irony is that in the future, there may be more flying" he joked on stage, suggesting "a hologram symbolizing artificial intelligence" as the next design for this award.

© 2019 AFP