Tesla Giga Berlin expansion: 1 million cars, new factory hall and 2027 construction

© Elon Musk

Compared with 2025 output, Tesla’s German plant would need to increase production almost fivefold to reach its long-term design capacity of one million vehicles a year. Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg SE reported about 202,000 Model Y built in Grünheide in 2025, versus roughly 211,000 a year earlier. Capacity utilisation was 54%.

The company is now preparing the next expansion stage: a new production hall north of the existing plant with an area of about 536,000 square metres. That is roughly 2.45 times the size of the current building, which covers about 219,000 square metres. German broadcaster rbb reports that Tesla intends to file the new application in December 2026, with construction potentially starting in 2027.

The target of one million vehicles is not new. Tesla already included an increase from 500,000 to 1 million vehicles per year in the expansion application submitted in 2023. The gap to current production remains large, however: compared with 202,000 vehicles in 2025, one million would require output to rise by about 4.95 times.

Production is already being increased. In spring Tesla announced the hiring of 1,000 employees, and at the end of June it announced another 1,000 jobs plus a target rate of 7,500 Model Y per week from October. Multiplying that rate by 52 weeks gives about 390,000 vehicles a year if production ran without interruptions. That is only a theoretical annualised rate, not an official Tesla annual forecast.

Delivery times for some Model Y versions in Germany already extend into early 2027: for selected configurations, Tesla’s official configurator shows estimated delivery in January to February. But a queue for particular versions does not by itself prove an immediate need for capacity of one million vehicles a year.

There are infrastructure constraints as well. Alongside the new production hall, Tesla plans its own electrical substation, an additional water system and expanded wastewater treatment. According to rbb, the site’s total water consumption would rise after the expansion, while on-site treatment is intended to process sanitary wastewater without adding further load to the external disposal system.

Tesla stresses that the phased expansion was already part of its 2023 application. The first partial permit issued on 15 October 2024 confirmed the possibility of further site development, but construction of the northern production hall requires the next approval stage.

The overall expansion is planned over roughly ten years. One million cars is therefore not a production forecast for 2027 but the plant’s long-term design capacity. The next verifiable steps are the new application in December 2026 and the required approvals before construction can begin.