A Tesla battery on display. Image: keystone
May 12, 2026, 7:04 p.mMay 12, 2026, 7:04 p.m
The US electric car manufacturer Tesla wants to hire more than 1,500 new employees for battery cell production in Grünheide near Berlin. Almost 250 million US dollars should be invested, Tesla announced in a communiqué on Tuesday.
This is intended to achieve the annual production of 18 gigawatt hours of battery cells in Grünheide. In April, the car manufacturer announced that it wanted to hire around 1,000 new employees at its only European car factory by the end of June in order to increase production by a fifth to around 6,000 vehicles per week due to increased demand. The production and registration numbers had fallen, but now Tesla is seeing a turnaround.
Tesla wants everything in one location
“Everything from battery cells to electric vehicles is expected to be produced at one location from 2027,” the company announced. “This is unique in Europe.” According to Tesla’s own assessment, this makes it more resilient.
Currently only components are produced in Brandenburg. The cells are manufactured in the USA and come to Germany. Europe has so far lagged behind Asia in particular in the production of battery cells for electric cars. Tesla boss Musk announced in 2020 that he wanted to make the factory near Berlin the world’s largest battery factory.
In December, Tesla announced that it expected to produce up to 8 gigawatt hours of battery cells per year from 2027. One gigawatt hour is equal to 1 million kilowatt hours. A Tesla Model Y Standard consumes 13.1 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers.
According to the company, 10,700 people were recently employed at the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg. Tesla is also expected to take on around 500 temporary workers into permanent jobs over the course of the year. (sda/awp/dpa)