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Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

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Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#241

Post by kpennell »

grecy wrote: post #154
sidcool wrote: post #139

How in the world does Tesla execute so fast? The Tesla team seems relentless in its ambitions.

Checkout this internal memo from Elon just as the Model 3 was going into ramp-up for production: – Excessive meetings are the blight of big companies and almost always get worse over time. Please get of all large meetings, unless you’re certain they are providing value to the whole audience, in which case keep them very short. – Also get rid of frequent meetings, unless you are dealing with an extremely urgent matter…

thx for posting this.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#242

Post by jillesvangurp »

reallydontask wrote: post #236
jillesvangurp wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it makes sense from that angle but also from the angle that Germany is rich grounds for poaching people that are currently working for one of the other big car manufacturers. E.g. VW just opened a huge plant for producing their EVs in Zwickau which would about 300km away. Brandenburg as a state is an interesting. Crucially, it's not the state of Berlin (Berlin is s city state within the German federation). Th…

> (Berlin is s city state within the German federation). Is that a more literal translation of Bundesrepublik Deutschland? In English, Germany is normally referred to as Federal Republic of Germany?

Yes, Germany is a federation of states. I think there are about 16 of them. They have their own governments, elections, etc. A few of those are city states (Berlin, Hamburg,...). Here's a list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Germany

The location Tesla picked is just outside of Berlin in the state of Brandenburg.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#243

Post by romanovcode »

wcoenen wrote: post #238
romanovcode wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brandenburg is one of the poorest regions in Germany. Berlin as a city brings negative GDP to country. I think they can just get it for (relatively) cheap there and that would be the main reason.

GDP is comparable to the concept of revenue for a company, which is not the same as profit/loss. Revenue cannot be negative unless the company is charging negative prices. I think what you meant is that Berlin has a net inflow of tax money.

This chart[0] clearly shows that Germany would have +0.2% GDP per capita without Berlin.

[0] https://qz.com/753244/berlin-is-the-only-capital-city-in-eur...

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#244

Post by neuronic »

lnsru wrote: post #222
iagooar wrote: post #168

It is great news for Berlin (and Brandenburg) as it will bring (big) money and attract talent. It might even attract people from Poland which is only an hour drive away and has a large pool of very talented and experienced engineers. So far besides maybe Siemens there wasn't too much industry here, which is more present in the south of the country. Being outside of the city center it won't contribute too much to gent…

It’s interesting what kind of talent one needs for a factory. Engineers? I doubt... These will be simple workers, couple equipment operators with some education. All the blueprints are coming from Tesla’s HQ anyway, so not much engineering needed. There is also Tesla in Germany that does all the engineering: https://teslagrohmannautomation.de/de/

You are thinking of engineering the cars itself. However, in a factory like this, engineering is much more than that. Engineering, maintaining, and improving the factory won't be an exclusive gig from across the Atlantic (+ Great Plains + Rockys).

Aside from that, Brandenburg is rich grounds for the other staff a factory needs. You can combine cheaper EU-labor with mid-range jobs very well in Germany.

The only thing Tesla could face which it wont like are unions and workers rights because Germans sure won't put up with 100 hour work weeks or similar business practices.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#245

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

lnsru wrote: post #222
iagooar wrote: post #168

It is great news for Berlin (and Brandenburg) as it will bring (big) money and attract talent. It might even attract people from Poland which is only an hour drive away and has a large pool of very talented and experienced engineers. So far besides maybe Siemens there wasn't too much industry here, which is more present in the south of the country. Being outside of the city center it won't contribute too much to gent…

It’s interesting what kind of talent one needs for a factory. Engineers? I doubt... These will be simple workers, couple equipment operators with some education. All the blueprints are coming from Tesla’s HQ anyway, so not much engineering needed. There is also Tesla in Germany that does all the engineering: https://teslagrohmannautomation.de/de/

You need lots of blue-collar-with-a-doctorate engineers. Batteries are closer to a chemical plant than car manufacturing.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#246

Post by pjc50 »

DanielleMolloy wrote: post #63
pjc50 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla isn't particularly political and there's no Fascist angle?

Can you elaborate on how you think Google is „fascist“?

I wasn't actually going to point to the surveillance question, and I didn't say that Google itself was fascist, but the parent poster seemed to think that antifa might have some opposition to google and did not offer their own reason.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#247

Post by piva00 »

pilsetnieks wrote: post #74
wirrbel wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wolfsburg ist 200km away from Berlin. Cologne has Ford, Hesse has Opel and continental, although the center of gravity is in the south, it's not like the industry doesn't have a certain spread throughout the country.

In America, 200 years are a long time; in Europe 200 km is a long distance.

That saying is meant for a leisure trip, 200km is close by for almost any kind of industry these days.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#248

Post by yorwba »

romanovcode wrote: post #243
wcoenen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP is comparable to the concept of revenue for a company, which is not the same as profit/loss. Revenue cannot be negative unless the company is charging negative prices. I think what you meant is that Berlin has a net inflow of tax money.

This chart[0] clearly shows that Germany would have +0.2% GDP per capita without Berlin. [0] https://qz.com/753244/berlin-is-the-only-capital-city-in-eur...

That means the GDP per capita is lower than the country average, not that the GDP contribution is negative and not that getting rid of Berlin would be good for the German economy.

Re: Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

#250

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

romanovcode wrote: post #237
iagooar wrote: post #168

It is great news for Berlin (and Brandenburg) as it will bring (big) money and attract talent. It might even attract people from Poland which is only an hour drive away and has a large pool of very talented and experienced engineers. So far besides maybe Siemens there wasn't too much industry here, which is more present in the south of the country. Being outside of the city center it won't contribute too much to gent…

Brandenburg is one of the poorest regions in Germany. Berlin as a city brings negative GDP to country. I think they can just get it for (relatively) cheap there and that would be the main reason.

Wages at the higher levels of education are not significantly lower in Berlin than anywhere else in Germany. Berlin (and Brandenburg) still has a somewhat higher levels of unemployment (at 7.x and 5.x%, respectively), but that doesn't really do much for such a project. Land is relatively cheap, but I doubt that makes much of a difference.

If I had to speculate, Tesla is concerned about finding people willing to relocate, and Berlin is a rather attractive destination even for people not speaking German.

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