Tesla’s fourth Gigafactory will be in Berlin, Elon Musk says

Tesla’s first Gigafactory outside Reno, Nevada. | Photo by Becca Farsace / The Verge

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Tuesday that his company’s fourth Gigafactory will be built just outside Berlin, Germany.

The announcement comes as Tesla is finishing up construction on the third Gigafactory outside Shanghai, China, and just a few days after New York State wrote down the value of the company’s second Gigafactory, a repurposed SolarCity facility in Buffalo, New York, by more than $800 million. Tesla’s first Gigafactory opened in 2016 (but is still under construction) outside Reno, Nevada.

“Berlin is great,” Musk said, after receiving the Golden Steering Wheel award from German auto publication Auto Bild. “I love Berlin.”

Musk has spent the last few years teasing that Tesla would build a fourth Gigafactory in Europe, and Germany’s grip on the auto industry made it a likely landing spot. He’s said he wants to build up to as many as 10 or 12 around the world.

♥️ GIGA BERLIN ♥️

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 12, 2019

In a recent earnings report, Tesla said the European Gigafactory would likely be operational by 2021. The company predicted it would be similar to the Shanghai facility as well, since it would be producing Model 3 sedans and Model Y crossovers.

The new factory outside Berlin is not Tesla’s fourth overall; the company currently assembles all of its cars at a former Toyota plant in Fremont, California. It also operates a seat factory near the Fremont plant, and has been building another facility in Lathrop, California.

Tesla’s Gigafactory in Nevada is the focus of an investigative podcast released this week from USA Today, which found the massive facility has strained local resources and brought a “host of complications to the region.”