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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

#381

Post by Tomte »

jansan wrote: post #345
reitzensteinm wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They already own Grohmann, so I'm guessing they have a fair idea. I remember a flap at the time about Tesla forcing them to ditch their other clients as quickly as possible, which was a bit of a culture shock, but why else would they have bought them in the first place? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Grohmann_Automation

Grohmann is located at the other end of Germany. Even for them, opening a factory in Brandenburg would probably result in quite a culture shock.

Labor law is federal and exactly the same.

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

#382

Post by donpott »

Zenst wrote: post #372
donpott wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon himself has cited Brexit uncertainty as a reason for choosing Germany over the UK. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/13/tesla-cit...

He also said “Some of the best cars in the world are made in Germany. Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding, for sure, and that’s part of the reason why we are locating our gigafactory Europe in Germany. We are also going to create an engineering and design centre in Berlin.” Thing is with Brexit, you have 50% wanting to leave, 50% wanting to stay and a proportional represented result being playout ou…

I think we would probably both agree that it wasn't the only factor, but it was a factor.

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

#383

Post by rob74 »

donpott wrote: post #382
Zenst wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He also said “Some of the best cars in the world are made in Germany. Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding, for sure, and that’s part of the reason why we are locating our gigafactory Europe in Germany. We are also going to create an engineering and design centre in Berlin.” Thing is with Brexit, you have 50% wanting to leave, 50% wanting to stay and a proportional represented result being playout ou…

I think we would probably both agree that it wasn't the only factor, but it was a factor.

Plus, while congratulating the winners, it's more tactful to mention the reasons that made you decide in their favour rather than saying "we would have gone to the UK, if not for Brexit".

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

#384

Post by hef19898 »

vertex-four wrote: post #342
roomey wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get you are joking, but there are two points that I would like to raise: There are many, many SV companies with large offices in parts of the world with very strong workers rights. I work in one of these. There is no problem, other then I'm not expected to work weekends and be on-call at unreasonable hours. If this is required I would need to be compensated for it. Secondly; perhaps I am reading into this, but I ge…

I’m outside the SV bubble for the most part, the “joke” if there was one was that Tesla is going to have serious culture clash if they try to treat their German workers like their workers elsewhere, and I’m going to be reading about the resulting court cases for years.

Rumour has it that Amazon has a dedicated judge at the labour court in Munich. Just the existance of such a rumour is telling you a lot.

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

#385

Post by nonsince »

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…

I absolutely do not want more tech companies gentrifying Berlin and continuing the encroachment of foreign corporate Neubauten. The amount of berlin for the working class is shrinking by the day and the culture that draws people to this city is being scrubbed out as a result. When the protests inevitably happen, as they did for the Google campus before it, I’ll be standing on the picket line.

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

#386

Post by mqus »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #334
mqus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As they want to open their factory next to the new Airport, it will basically be in Brandenburg and not in the center of Berlin (not that it would fit there). They probably will change the neighbourhood there, but automobile engineers are perceived as worker class while google techies generally are not. I also think that Google would have had no problems If they would have opened their office in Adlershof. So to summ…

Still Middle class workers in both cases

That probably depends on the definition but I'm with you there. What I meant was the (media) perception which is definitely different for "hardworking, family-supporting car workers" vs "single, well-earning entitled startup employees", which are obviously clichés.

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

#387

Post by lnsru »

CathedralBorrow wrote: post #263
lnsru wrote: 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/

That is really interesting. What expertise are you speaking from?

I work in a factory and support factories in other countries. Headquarters have many engineers, satellite factories have only dozen. Mostly for maintenance and quality control. All the thinking and decision making happens in HQ.

Edit: typos

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

#388

Post by sangnoir »

avar wrote: post #309
vertex-four wrote: post #287

Watching a SV company suddenly have to deal with German workers' rights (think: unions, significant protection from being fired without cause, rights to paid holiday and enforced maternity leave, even workers' councils which have representation at a management level) is going to be hilarious.

You seem to be unaware that Tesla already has a sizable presence in Europe, including a final assembly plant in the Netherlands. Some of the details are different, but I don't see employing a significant amount of Germans being novel for them.

German labor laws and how unions work there is rather different to other European countries - the Netherlands included.

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

#389

Post by mikojan »

vertex-four wrote: post #287

Watching a SV company suddenly have to deal with German workers' rights (think: unions, significant protection from being fired without cause, rights to paid holiday and enforced maternity leave, even workers' councils which have representation at a management level) is going to be hilarious.

Germany has been spearheading the neoliberal assault on democracy alongside the US and Great Britain as early as the 1980s. In the 2000s we created "Europe's best low-income sector" (Gerhard Schroeder) and destroyed the pension scheme. This dramatically decreased social security among low- to middle-income workers.

German labor institutions are strategically oriented towards collaboration (much like in the US), they are extremely centralized and anti-democratic and if you're in the workers' council and you're a member of the supervisory board, socio-economically you belong to the upper class. This facilitates the same corporate conspiracies as everywhere else.

Furthermore, East-Germany's labor market as a whole is much more like Eastern European labor markets. It is super-exploited. However, it is right in Western Europe where you've got access to decent infrastructure and massive subsidies.

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

#390

Post by adrianN »

lm28469 wrote: post #370
adrianN wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rent prices didn't double because incomes doubled, otherwise people could still afford it. Rent increases because Berlin doesn't build enough affordable housing.

Also because big corps pay insane amount of money and most companies can't follow, especially in berlin, which is neither a tech nor a financial hub. There isn't a single cause to that but these companies are definitely part of it. If no one could rent these flats they wouldn't be that pricey... There is a lot of affordable housing too, I'm in the process of looking for a flat and a good 30% of them requires a Wohnbe…

If a few thousand well paid people are enough to double the rents is a city of 3.6 million people, this is not the fault of the corporations "paying too much", it's the result of poor city planning.
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