BERLIN (Reuters) – Tesla’s plant in Brandenburg near Berlin is now producing 4,000 cars per week, the company said on Monday, three weeks ahead of schedule according to a recent production plan reviewed by Reuters.
Output from the plant is now a third of Model Y output in Shanghai, where Tesla planned to keep an average total output of 13,000 Model Ys per week – around 1,000 below maximum capacity – and a further 7,000 Model 3s in February and March, according to the production plan.
Tesla was planning to ramp up output from Brandenburg to 4,000 in the week of March 13 and to more than 5,000 by the end of June. It hit production of 2,000 units per week in October last year and 3,000 per week in December.
The maximum capacity planned for the Brandenburg plant is 500,000 cars a year, nearing 10,000 per week.
Tesla has also begun assembling batteries in Germany that will soon be used in vehicles produced at the plant, but said last week it will focus cell production in the U.S. in light of Inflation Reduction Act incentives.
The U.S. electric-vehicle maker is also preparing to produce cell components such as electrodes, some of which will be sent from its site in Gruenheide in the state of Brandenburg to the United States, Tesla said on Wednesday.
It is due to update analysts on its strategy on Wednesday.
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee, Zhang Yan, Editing by Friederike Heine)
