New Milestone:
Tesla announced that its Gigafactory Berlin has reached a new production rate milestone, yielding 4,000 Model Y vehicles per week.
Tesla generally considers 5,000 units per week to be the goal when ramping up a new vehicle to volume production at a new factory.
Tesla originally planned to finish production at Gigafactory Berlin by the end of 2022, after starting late in 2021.
However, given the ongoing global supply chain crisis, the goal was lofty.
Instead, Tesla announced that it finished the year with a respectable weekly production rate of 3,000 Model Y vehicles at Gigafactory Berlin.
Tesla confirmed two months later that the factory has accomplished its goal of keeping the ramp to 4,000 vehicles per week.
This brings Tesla’s total annual capacity at Gigafactory Berlin to around 200,000 vehicles, putting it on track to meet its goal of 5,000 units per week.
The Road Ahead:
When the automaker achieves that goal, it will have several significant ramifications.
In general, this is where the gross margin begins to improve and the factory begins to have a less negative impact on Tesla’s overall gross margin. It also implies that Tesla will begin to consider deploying production capacity for another vehicle programme at the Gigafactory Berlin.
Tesla previously mentioned a Model 3 production line, but it’s unclear if that’s still the plan.
The carmaker also intended to begin manufacturing battery cells at the facility, but we recently heard that Tesla had scaled back that plan in lieu of first scaling up cell production in the US.
In the Gigafactory Berlin, Tesla intends to eventually create over 500,000 automobiles annually, along with the battery cells needed to support that production capacity. And that’s just for the factory’s first construction. Ultimately, according to Tesla, the plant will aim to produce up to a million automobiles yearly.