Gigafactory Berlin — Tesla’s first European plant opens

On 22 March 2022, Tesla opened Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg near Grünheide, Germany, and delivered the first Model Ys built on European soil. It was Tesla’s first car factory in Europe, built in roughly two years despite a complex permitting process, and brought EV manufacturing into the heart of the continent’s legacy auto industry.

The plant localised production for European customers — cutting shipping from China and the US — and became a major employer in the region, ramping toward a planned capacity of around 500,000 vehicles a year. Building a greenfield car factory in Germany, home to Volkswagen, BMW and Mercedes, was a statement about where Tesla believed the industry was heading.