San Francisco: Elon Musk has announced that Tesla Gigafactory in Germany will start rolling out first vehicles by the end of 2021.
Speaking at the “Giga-Fest” county fair style event which included music, rides and food trucks, Musk said that the electric car-maker will start with manufacturing Model Y vehicles, in addition to millions of battery cells.
“We’re aiming to start production in a few months, basically, November or December, and hopefully deliver our first cars in December. But starting production is kind of the easy part. The hard part is reaching volume production,” he told the audience at the event late on Saturday.
The Berlin Gigafactory is facing several lawsuits by environmental groups. Locals have filed more than 800 complaints against the facility.
Despite protests, Tesla has a 95 per cent chance of receiving factory approval, according to Brandenburg’s economy minister.
Tesla aims to produce as many as 500,000 cars a year and have 12,000 employees at the Berlin plant.
Musk last week announced that Tesla is moving its headquarters from Silicon Valley’s Palo Alto, California to Austin, Texas, where it is building a plant.
Tesla will continue to operate its electric vehicle factory in Fremont, California, and increase production there by 50 per cent.
“I’m excited to announce that we’re moving our headquarters to Austin, Texas,” Musk said at an annual shareholders meeting.
Musk himself moved to Texas last year, as SpaceX increased its presence in the southern tip of the country.