In the United States, customers of the highly anticipated Tesla Model Y received the electric car much earlier than initially announced – deliveries have been reported from there regularly since mid-March. But customers in Europe will have to wait a while for the electric crossover: As Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed, they will only be supplied when the Model Y rolls off the assembly line in the new Gigafactory near Grünheide (Giga Berlin).
Tesla CEO answers Twitter question
“In about a year,” Musk replied when asked by a Twitter user when the Model Y would be available in Switzerland. That sounds good at first, because then European customers would only have to wait a little more than a year longer for the somewhat larger platform brother of the Model 3 than American ones; In addition, the Model Y was originally not even announced for the United States until late 2020.
However, the Tesla boss now also mentioned that the Model Y for Europe will come from the German Gigafactory, the construction of which is currently being prepared in Grünheide near Berlin. And that it should produce electric cars as early as spring 2021 would be new: According to the Brandenburg state government, the start of production in the Giga Berlin is scheduled for summer 2021.
In about a year. Would come from Giga Berlin.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2020
It was only this week that it became known that the Tesla work in Grünheide will probably not progress as quickly as was expected after the rapid clearing and leveling of the site since February: an application from Tesla for early approval for the foundation as well the Gigafactory is currently at a standstill because of changes to the original plans; the entire application for the Tesla project must also be revised and submitted to the public for inspection.
Tesla should continue to expect 2020
Brandenburg’s Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach said that this was not a drama and would probably have no impact on the overall project – Tesla continues to expect Model Y in to start production in Grünheide next year. However, he did not want to commit himself to the fact that it would really be so far in the summer. In the German Tesla configurator, the start date for Model Y is still in early 2021. This was already in mid-February, when the first indications came that Europe would have to wait for the Gigafactory in Berlin.
Even if it stays in Grünheide at the start date summer 2021 or even spring, it should be clear that before the Europeans it will be the Chinese model Y’s turn. In addition to the first Gigafactory building in Shanghai, Tesla is currently having another large hall built that could be used for the electric crossover. A video from the end of March showed that the pile foundation work was already well underway, which will also be required in Grünheide according to the new plans.
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