Following the third anniversary of Tesla’s plant in Grünheide, Germany, the top of producing on the facility addressed varied points, together with Elon Musk’s political affiliations with U.S. President Donald Trump, the potential for a commerce battle, declining gross sales in Germany, and extra.
Andre Thierig, Senior Director of Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin, spoke with the German information outlet Frankfurter Allgemeine, emphasizing that the electrical automobile producer stays unfazed by the present political panorama regarding Musk and Trump. He reaffirmed Tesla’s deal with producing wonderful autos, a sentiment echoed by a number of high executives and designers throughout the firm.
“We as an organization, and much more in order a manufacturing unit location, have by no means positioned ourselves politically,” Thierig said when requested if Musk’s politicization was detrimental to the model. He went on to say, “We deal with what we do finest, particularly to construct vehicles, and excellent and really many. For us, that is about manufacturing on the web site and never in politics. We are able to separate that effectively.”
The dialog additionally addressed the arson assaults from environmental activists that occurred final March. When queried concerning the probability of future incidents and whether or not the corporate had enhanced its safety measures in mild of elevated vandalism and worldwide protests, Thierig famous that Giga Berlin has improved its information-sharing community to reply extra successfully to such assaults and that workers on-site would act if wanted.
In regard to the decline in February gross sales in Germany, Thierig attributed it to the manufacturing unit’s shift to producing the refreshed Mannequin Y, which necessitated a short shutdown of manufacturing. He remarked that whereas he could not present specifics on pre-orders for the brand new Mannequin Y, the main target of his crew remained on manufacturing, leaving gross sales figures to the gross sales division.
“We within the Gigafactory don’t promote, we produce,” he defined. “The gross sales figures are the accountability of our gross sales group. Nevertheless, we all know our manufacturing figures and our manufacturing planning, and we’re at the moment transferring manufacturing additional excessive. Our supply places right here and on the airport web site in Neuhardenberg are comparatively empty, so the vehicles are rapidly getting into the market.”
When discussing potential tariffs from the Trump administration, Thierig talked about that the manufacturing unit has elevated the localization of its suppliers with the shift to the brand new Mannequin Y; at the moment, 92 p.c of the EV’s parts are sourced from Europe. “This makes us much more resilient to disturbances in world commerce,” he added. He additionally famous that the manufacturing unit’s excessive degree of vertical integration has confirmed helpful, permitting it to keep away from manufacturing disruptions throughout challenges just like the COVID-19 pandemic, the chip disaster, and the battle in Ukraine.
The interview additional explored Giga Berlin’s growth plans, addressed current criticism from the IG Metall union, and Thierig’s expectations for the incoming federal authorities, together with discussions concerning the want for decreased forms in Germany.
Thierig, who has been with Tesla at Giga Berlin since August 2020, started as a paint supervisor earlier than being promoted to Manufacturing Director and in the end Senior Director. Earlier than becoming a member of Tesla, he spent 19 years with Ford’s German operations, primarily in paint engineering.
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