Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed that Tesla is going to build Gigafactory 4 in the Berlin area.
The factory will be built on a 300-hectare plot of land, which is located in the countryside nearly an hour away from Berlin by car. The property is next to the GVZ Berlin-Ost Freienbrink industrial park, which, according to German media, houses a few companies.
To build on that plot, Tesla will have to cut down a significant amount of trees because the land is part of a forest. Thankfully, Tesla says it will plant 3 times as many trees in Brandenburg as they cut down.
Back in early 2000, BMW was planning on building a new factory on this very same plot of land. However, BMW eventually decided to make the factory in Leipzig instead because there was some pushback about chopping down part of the forest, which is near natural reserves.
As well as planting 3 times as many trees as they cut, Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk has donated $1 million to a tree-planting foundation to plant 1 million trees. For every dollar, the foundation plants a tree. The donation is a part of an online YouTube-based campaign called #TeamTrees. After giving the money, Musk changed his name on Twitter to “Treelon Musk,” and he even changed his profile picture to an image of a forest.
Tesla’s production at Gigafactory 4 will include producing battery-powered vehicles, which is going to have a positive impact on the environment. Maybe this will help Tesla get less push back for building a factory on the land than BMW since the factory plans to make electric vehicles rather than more polluting vehicles.
Construction hasn’t started yet at the new location, but Musk said that he expects Gigafactory 4 construction to begin in the next 12 to 18 months and will be operational by the end of 2021.
