Almost 19 years after its founding, Tesla Inc has a vehicle factory network that spans the globe.
The leading electric vehicle (EV) maker on Tuesday opened its plant outside Berlin, handing over the first 30 Model Ys to customers in front of German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Chief executive officer Elon Musk followed through on his promise to dance as he did when Tesla opened its Shanghai factory two years ago.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Musk later posted a comment on Twitter thanking Germany with the words: “Danke Deutschland,” surrounded by German national flags.
Tesla shares on Tuesday rose for a sixth consecutive day, increasing as much as 6.8 percent to US$984 and pushing the firm’s market capitalization back above US$1 trillion.
The 5 billion euro (US$5.5 billion) facility — first announced in late 2019 — increases Tesla’s capacity to make electric sport utility vehicles as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drives up fuel costs and adds momentum to soaring EV demand.
The question for Musk, 50, is how quickly the company can ramp up output in the midst of industrywide supply-chain challenges, including shortages of semiconductors and battery metals.
“The start of production is nice, but volume production is the hard part,” Musk said during a visit to the plant construction site in October last year.
He said that Tesla would target making 5,000 to 10,000 vehicles per week by the end of this year.
Tesla’s plant in Gruenheide is essential to Musk capturing more of Europe’s expanding EV market.
He wrote on Twitter last week that he is working on a new “master plan” for the automaker and on Monday wrote that “scaling to extreme size” would be a main subject.
The start of Model Y deliveries at the factory is the culmination of a surprise announcement that Musk made while accepting an award more than two years ago at an event attended by the heads of BMW AG, Volkswagen AG and Audi.
Vehicles are now rolling off the production line in Germany’s automotive heartland, where Tesla has hired more than 3,000 workers.
That number is set to grow by a few thousand over the coming months, Tesla said in an e-mailed statement.
The company expects to eventually employ 12,000 people once full vehicle production is underway, alongside a 50 gigawatt-hour battery-making operation.
“We have to get behind progress that’s driving new technologies, because that’s how we’ll get new jobs,” Scholz said in remarks prepared for a speech at the facility.
German Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck said the opening of the factory is “a nice symbol” that gasoline-powered vehicles can be replaced with EVs at a time when Germany and other European nations are trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and wean themselves off Russian oil.
Although Tesla moved quickly to construct the facility, it was beset by months-long permitting delays that at times exasperated the world’s richest person.
Concerns at the site centered around its environmental impact, with environmentalists opposing the tree-clearing that preceded construction, and the effects the facility is to have on wildlife and the water supply.
The water supply issue could linger and factor into Musk’s expansion plans, with the local water authority saying last week that further development would not be possible without additional extraction permits.
Additional reporting by AP
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
PRESSURE EXPECTED: The appreciation of the NT dollar reflected expectations that Washington would press Taiwan to boost its currency against the US dollar, dealers said Taiwan’s export-oriented semiconductor and auto part manufacturers are expecting their margins to be affected by large foreign exchange losses as the New Taiwan dollar continued to appreciate sharply against the US dollar yesterday. Among major semiconductor manufacturers, ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光), the world’s largest integrated circuit (IC) packaging and testing services provider, said that whenever the NT dollar rises NT$1 against the greenback, its gross margin is cut by about 1.5 percent. The NT dollar traded as strong as NT$29.59 per US dollar before trimming gains to close NT$0.919, or 2.96 percent, higher at NT$30.145 yesterday in Taipei trading
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