2023-02-23 08:00:00
The message from Brandenburg’s Ministry of Economic Affairs to the Archyde.com news agency began calmly: “Tesla has started producing battery systems in Grünheide and is preparing to manufacture battery cell components.” So far, so good. But then came the hammer. It also said: “The company has prioritized further production steps in the USA because the tax conditions are more favorable there.”
This was never mentioned when construction work began on the Tesla factory in Brandenburg. At that time, CEO Elon Musk had announced full-bodiedly that, in addition to the production facilities for vehicles, the “largest battery production in the world at the Grünheide site” with a peak capacity of over 50 gigawatt hours per year would be built. In March 2022, at the inauguration of the plant, he had promised that the battery plant would go into series production by the end of 2023.
But what does Musk care about yesterday’s chatter? Nothing.
In the meantime, thanks to US President Joe Biden, a different wind is blowing in the USA when it comes to electromobility than in the days of Trump. The “Inflation Reduction Act”, for example, provides for a comprehensive climate protection package worth 369 billion dollars (around 347 billion euros) to combat inflation. This is the largest investment ever made by the USA in favor of climate protection; the subsidies are to go, among other things, into the production of electric cars, batteries and the development of renewable energies.
A very welcome rain of money for Elon Musk. The existing Gigafactory complex in Reno/Nevada alone is to be expanded with a cash injection of more than 3.6 billion US dollars (3.4 billion euros), among other things in order to produce battery cells in another factory there. Every single tax billion is more than just the icing on the cake.
In general, the meanwhile only second richest person on earth can always be found where the wind is particularly strong on his back. For example, the Brandenburg governing coalition of SPD, CDU and Greens made the construction of the Tesla plant in Grünheide really appealing to him by granting approval in the middle of a drinking water protection area where there is already a constant water shortage. According to Tesla, it needs 1.4 million cubic meters of drinking water annually, which is roughly equivalent to the consumption of a city of 30,000 people.
As recently as December last year, the municipal council in Grünheide gave the green light to expand the previous Tesla site from around 300 hectares by a further 100 hectares – where there was previously a healthy forest.
Actually, Tesla should have received more than one billion euros in funding for the Gigafactory in Grünheide. In November, Elon Musk then announced that he would forego funding. Apparently he had some kind of sixth sense at this point. Because now it has become apparent that Tesla has not met a number of conditions for the funding and would not have received the money anyway.
In the US, however, Musk is now benefiting from the protectionist policies of American President Joe Biden. The American shirt is closer to that than the German skirt. Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck and his French colleague Bruno Le Maire, who flew to Washington in February to prevent this, could just as well have done without this trip and thus saved a few tons of CO2. (Hans-Robert Richarz/cen)
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