Tesla opens new German factory as Musk teases ‘master plan’

Tesla finally cut the ribbon on its Germany-based gigafactory Tuesday, presenting 30 customers with the first European-made Teslas in the world. With Giga Berlin officially a go, Tesla hopes to better flood the European market, which has so far been supplied by factories in the U.S. and China (where COVID-19 continues to disrupt its Shanghai factory operations).

The expansion is all part of Elon Musk‘s master plan, which has hit a number of roadblocks over scale and environmental concerns. The company said the Brandenburg-based gigafactory will have capacity to produce 500,000 vehicles a year, which is more than half of the 936,000 units Tesla delivered worldwide in 2021.

First Model Y deliveries at Giga Berlin pic.twitter.com/JCneGrBJRA

— Tesla (@Tesla) March 22, 2022

But experts worry the area doesn’t have enough water to sustain the scale up, and a German publication previously reported the factory will start by turning about 1,000 units a week. To reach 500,000 annually, that would eventually have to ramp up to about 9,615 per week.

Working on Master Plan Part 3

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2022

Musk teased on Twitter that he’s “working on Master Plan Part 3,” later hinting that Tesla will be scaling to “extreme size,” and adding that the master plan will also include sections about his other projects, SpaceX and The Boring Company. Tesla shares rose more than 16% in the four days following that tweet.

Musk published his first master plan in 2006, when many thought Tesla would fail. Now, he’s the richest man in the world and some analysts expect he will eventually become the world’s first trillionaire.