Grünheide: Tesla factory expansion will be smaller than planned

Tesla actually wanted to significantly expand its Gigafactory in Grünheide near Berlin. However, the local council has now submitted a revised development plan that provides for the opposite. The expansion of the factory for the construction of the US company’s electric cars is likely to be significantly smaller than originally planned.

Tesla and Grünheide find a compromise

Things are currently heating up again in Grünheide. For example, the Gigafactory’s production lines were at a standstill until the beginning of the week. The reason was a politically motivated attack on the car factory. Activists set fire to an electricity pylon, forcing production to be interrupted. This was the first time that criticism from local environmental activists had escalated. They oppose the establishment of the car manufacturer and the planned expansion of the plant. The activists from the “Stop Tesla” group have set up a tree house camp on site to prevent the planned clearing.

Now the local council no longer seems to want to stand idly by and accept the criticism. The administration has submitted a new development plan that differs from its predecessor in one crucial respect. After all, only 50 hectares rather than 100 hectares of forest are to fall victim to the plant expansion. This is to take into account the will of the local population, as Mayor Arne Christiani has now publicly announced.

Plant expansion to be smaller

The new development plan was preceded by a referendum almost three weeks ago. Here, the local citizens decided that they were against the planned forest clearance. Of course, this is not just a “no” to the clearing of the forest area. At the same time, the residents also expressed that the Gigafactory should not be allowed to grow any further. In view of the referendum and Tesla’s original plans, the mayor has now been forced to find a compromise. Accordingly, he quickly halved the planned area. It was not possible to do without clearing forest altogether.

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Otherwise, there would be problems with necessary transport infrastructure projects in the long term. For Tesla, however, this also means that it would have to do without originally planned facilities. For example, the US car manufacturer was actually planning to build a company daycare center for factory workers. Additional warehouses and service facilities were also to be built. By reducing the construction area, the company can now only concentrate on new logistics areas and storage facilities.