Tesla announced that it has achieved production of 1,000 Model Y vehicles in a week at Gigafactory Berlin. This is an important milestone – though the automaker originally planned to achieve it in April.
Tesla is currently in the middle of ramping up production at two major new factories, Gigafactory Berlin and Gigafactory Texas, and all of that amid a major global supply chain crisis.
It has to manage to both ramp up its production systems for a highly complex product, the Model Y, and manage this growing supply chain.
It has proved difficult.
After starting production in March at Gigafactory Berlin, it aimed to achieve a production rate of 1,000 units per week by the end of April, but we learn that Tesla had difficulties producing more than 350 units around that time.
The main bottleneck was the paint shop.
Today, Tesla announced that Gigafactory Berlin finally achieved the milestone of 1,000 Model Y vehicles built in a week:
If the factory can at least maintain that going forward, it means that Gigafactory Berlin is now adding 50,000 cars to Tesla’s annual production capacity.
Of course, the goal is to ramp that up by an order of magnitude, but more bottlenecks are going to show up along the way.
The factory is believed to be doing a lot better than Gigafactory Texas, which is limited by the production of 4680 cells and structural battery packs.
Gigafactory Berlin is still producing Model Y with 2170 cells, which is more widely available, and it plans to move to 4680 cells later once production has ramped up.
Electrek’s Take
Tesla is obviously behind schedule on the factory, but it is not surprising in the current global supply chain context.
At this current production volume, Tesla is also likely still losing money with the factory, but it is still positive for the value it gives to Gigafactory Shanghai.
Every car that Gigafactory Berlin produces is a car that Gigafactory Shanghai doesn’t have to ship halfway around the world and can deliver to China or other closer markets.
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