Tesla's Grünheide Plant: The Plan to Reach One Million Cars a Year

Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg SE, the company's only vehicle plant in Europe, plans to roughly double its long-term production target at the Grünheide site near Berlin, according to German news agency dpa reporting carried by Schwäbische Zeitung and other outlets, and confirmed by a company spokeswoman. The plant was originally planned to reach 500,000 cars a year, a level it has not yet achieved. Tesla now says it wants the site to be able to build up to one million vehicles annually.

What Tesla has filed and when

Tesla intends to submit a second partial building permit application to Brandenburg authorities by the end of 2026, dpa reported. The application covers a new production hall to be built north of the existing factory grounds, according to a summary of the filing reported by t-online. The new hall would cover about 536,000 square meters, more than twice the roughly 219,000 square meters of the current production building. Tesla says the project would not require clearing additional forest.

Construction of the new hall is not expected to start before 2027, and Tesla has described the overall expansion as a project spanning roughly a decade. The plan also includes a new on-site wastewater treatment facility intended to handle increased water use without placing extra burden on the municipal system, and a dedicated electrical substation, according to the t-online summary of the permit filing.

Jobs and battery production

According to dpa, Tesla plans to hire about 2,000 additional employees to support vehicle output rising toward 7,500 cars a week, and more than 1,500 further staff for expanded battery cell manufacturing. The plant's battery cell storage capacity is planned to grow to 100 gigawatt-hours a year. Grünheide currently employs about 12,600 people, dpa reported; the workforce had previously dropped below 11,000 before the recent round of hiring.

Current output versus the target

The one-million target is far from current reality. Tesla Manufacturing Brandenburg built about 202,000 Model Y vehicles at Grünheide in 2025, down from roughly 211,000 the year before, according to figures reported by automotive outlet Speedme. That means the plant ran at about 54% of its already-approved capacity in 2025, and would need output to rise nearly fivefold to hit the long-term one-million-car design figure.

A history of local opposition

Grünheide's expansion has faced resistance before. In a non-binding local referendum, the results of which were reported on 21 February 2024, 65% of more than 5,000 participating residents voted against an earlier version of Tesla's expansion plan, which involved adding 170 hectares to the factory site for a train station, warehouses and other infrastructure, according to the Clean Energy Wire. Opponents cited forest clearing and the plant's high water use. The town's mayor said the result meant the development plan could not be adopted in its existing form, while Brandenburg's economy minister called for using the vote to reconcile residents' concerns with the company's plans.

Brandenburg's state environmental agency later granted Tesla an initial environmental permit, reported by Euronews in October 2024, covering the first of three planned phases, including storage areas, a battery cell test laboratory and logistics infrastructure. Euronews also noted that a related rail station project had been scaled back after protests from locals and environmental groups, reducing the number of trees that needed to be removed.

Why this matters for the EV production race

Grünheide is Tesla's only vehicle and battery plant in Europe, alongside its larger Gigafactories in Texas and Shanghai. Euronews noted that reaching a million-car capacity would make it the largest car factory in Germany. The expansion plan comes as Tesla itself reported falling output at the site in 2025 and as, according to Euronews, European EV demand has been described as weakening — a combination that leaves open how quickly, if ever, the plant will approach the new long-term target even once permits are granted.