Tesla’s Giga Berlin finally ramped up to full speed

After facing numerous delays and difficulty finding – and keeping – workers, Tesla’s Brandenburg Gigafactory near Berlin has finally ramped up to full speed with three shifts. And a fourth weekend shift could also be on the cards if the production rate keeps increasing, with a cheaper and more compact Tesla on the horizon.

It’s good news all around at Tesla this quarter, with another record-breaking delivery result in Q1 2023 and now the news that its German factory near Berlin has managed to hire enough workers to run a three-shift schedule. That means the factory is running day and night during the work week.

Third shift underway, a fourth coming?

This is a relief for the American EV manufacturer, after reports from late last year stating that Tesla couldn’t manage to find and keep enough workers in Germany due to poor working conditions and lower pay compared to similar factories nearby.

According to Jochem Freyer, director of the Frankfurt employment agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit), Tesla is currently employing about 10 000 people in Giga Berlin, which is still off from the initially projected 12 000.

But Tesla seems hopeful, with Freyer stating that the company is looking into adding a fourth weekend shift, after optimizing the current production schedule, to support the manufacturer’s growth strategy. Currently, Giga Berlin is aiming for 250 000 vehicles per year, but that could increase up to 1 million per year, according to the expansion plans which were applied for last month.

New compact model also for Germany

This massive growth will not just come from Model Y, however. Tesla reportedly wants to produce up to four million units per year of its next vehicle, a more compact and cheaper passenger model based on the next-gen platform that was announced last year and during Investors Day in March.

Two out of the four million cars will be produced in North America (US and Mexico), 1 million in China (Shanghai), and another million in Germany. This will take some time, as Tesla has not even shown the model, let alone provided an estimated launch date.