Tesla Giga Berlin Secures Water Supply, Deliveries Beginning Today
Tesla’s new gigafactory near Berlin has secured its water supply and was given the green light to continue its planned production ramp-up, Berliner Zeitung reports. The water association (WSE) said at the very last minute that it will not terminate the supply contract with Tesla as it threatened to do.
André Bähler, head of SWE, and Anke Herrmann, head of water at the Brandenburg Environment Ministry, both agreed during talks in the Potsdam State Chancellery that a supplier may pump 1.3 million cubic meters more than tolerated during a water shortage.
Henryk Pilz, chairman of the association meeting, said:
“The WSE is withdrawing the decision to terminate the contract today.
“The WSE will lift the development freeze. But it must be clear to everyone that there can be no more in the future.”
This is rather good news for Tesla, and I’m sure some of those “environmental” groups long fighting Tesla on this will not be so pleased to hear the news. Those groups, in my opinion, have an unhealthy focus on Tesla and should redirect that focus onto the fossil fuel industry, which is causing untold damage to our environment. They should not be attacking one of the best solutions to the climate crisis. For some perspective just on the water issue, the Brandenburg coal mine uses 171 times more water than Tesla’s Giga Berlin will ever need.
The coal mine was supposed to pump 42 million cubic meters of water in 2020 but since 2017, it has actually pumped out a total of 240 million cubic meters too much, which has had an adverse effect on the area’s rivers and lakes. Tesla only needs 1.4 million cubic meters.
Tesla’s factory in Germany will enable the company to become a key player in the European car market — more so than it already is at the moment. It’s currently competing against European legacy automakers such as Audi and Volkswagen, with its factory in China exporting to Germany and other parts of Europe. Once Giga Berlin is producing vehicles, Tesla will become an even fiercer competitor.
Canalys Research noted that 6.5 million EVs were sold globally in 2021. This includes 4.5 million 100% battery electric vehicles. 2.3 million of the global total accounted for 19% of all new car sales in Europe. Over half of those — 54% to be exact — were 100% battery electric vehicles.
Tesla CEO and Technoking Elon Musk will start handing over cars produced at Giga Berlin later today.
Excited to hand over the first production cars made by Giga Berlin-Brandenburg tomorrow!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022
Makes a huge difference to capital efficiency to localize production within a continent
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 21, 2022
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