Tesla's Giga Berlin Shuts Down... But Not For As Long As You Thought: Senior Exec Clarifies

EV giant Tesla Inc TSLA will shut down production at its Berlin gigafactory for just a day this week, an executive confirmed, contrary to initial reports which said the halt would last for four days.

What Happened: Andre Thierig, Senior Director of Manufacturing at Giga Berlin, confirmed on social media platform X that the shutdown will only be for a day.

“Correct. One day planned production shutdown,” Thierig wrote. Initial reports pegged the shutdown at four days, including the weekends when no production is carried out at the factory and Thursday, a public holiday in the country.

German business newspaper Handelsblatt said the shutdown is due to protests against the company’s expansion efforts at the gigafactory.

Employees have been told to work from home and those in production will have a bridge day on Friday. There will be no buses or trains running to the factory from Thursday through Sunday and production will begin again with the night shift on Sunday after ending with the late shift on Wednesday, according to the newspaper.

Why It Matters: Local citizens near Tesla's gigafactory in Berlin voted against the EV giant's intention to cut trees to make space for its factory expansion in February, posing a significant challenge to Tesla’s plans to double the plant’s capacity for battery production to 100-gigawatt hours and car production to 1 million units annually.

In March, an arson attack on the factory caused a power outage and halted production for about a week. Far-left activist organization Vulkan Group claimed the attack and said it was spurred by environmental concerns.

“We sabotaged Tesla today. Because Tesla in Grünau eats up earth, resources, people, labor and spits out 6,000 SUVs, killing machines and monster trucks per week. Our gift for March 8th is to shut down Tesla,” the group said in a statement.

As per data by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, Tesla’s new car registrations in the European Union fell by 4.7% in the first quarter to 66,203 units.

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Photo courtesy: Tesla