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Tesla’s European gigafactory will be built in Berlin

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321–330 of 449 posts

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

#321
post #154

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…

Also Elon recently said he has started managing by rhymes. He said

"If the schedule is long it's wrong, if it's tight it's right. The best part is no part, the best process is no process."

All the hacking away of parts and processes pays off with speed.

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

#323

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.

GDP measures value added (final output). If you want to measure total value of new goods and services you should look at Gross Output (GO). GO includes sales to other industries (intermediate inputs).

For example, US GDP is $21 trillion, US GO is $37 trillion.

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

#325
post #8

They obviously needed to get one built in Europe sooner rather than later to boost marketshare there and stay ahead of demand without needing to ship from China or the US, but why Berlin? Does anyone know if they got subsidies out of it?

I think Berlin is a great choice, because it excels at the metrics that matter most in constructing a new gigafactory. I believe the most critical metrics are: - cost of construction, including cost of land: extremely low in Berlin - cost of labour/wages: extremely low in Berlin - standard of living: very high, healthy - reachability: near Airport, highways, railroad - location within Europe: Germany/Berlin is perfec…

I agree with the rest of your list, but German wages are not "extremely low" compared to, say, Romania.

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

#326
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Shows you how bad Brexit is for the UK that Tesla chose Germany over the UK.

Maybe like Italy we need reserved seats in the House of Lords for Engineering and STEM peers.

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

#327

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…

> which by Berlin standards is an amazing result. They only, and rightfully, get pissed when mega corps like google/amazon come in the city center, buy a 40 storey building and starts paying everyone 100% more than the average for the same position.

I don't see the problem there comrade :-)

From comments on here people have been saying the developers are seen as the poor cousins to traditional Engineers.

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

#328
post #78
post #2

Please drop your inevitable BER jokes below so we can recylce them properly later.

For anyone confused like me they mean the airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport?w...

I first though of BER encoding and I was like 'What jokes and what's the relationship with Tesla'

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

#329

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.

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 reloc…

That was my thought Berlin has the Cool Factor that other German Cities don't.

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

#330
post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. There can be huge import taxes on cars depending on country, even inside EU.

There are no* import taxes on any goods moved within the EU. That's a fundamental principle of the thing. The fee to register a car for use on public road varies. It's very high in Denmark (120% of the value or something) but the place of manufacture doesn't affect that. Second hand imported cars still need to pay it. * Exception is the duty paid on alcohol and cigarettes, depending how you define it.

Right you're correct. Yet it's basically the same function.
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