Tesla is looking to add a fourth shift for the assembly lines at its Berlin Gigafactory in Germany in a bid to double weekly production and thus reach 500,000 cars made per year.
The report comes via the German publication rbb24, which writes that Tesla has already added a third production shift, as confirmed by the head of the Frankfurt Employment Agency, Jochem Freyer. The official said that the EV manufacturer has already filled all the positions needed for the third shift and, as rbb24 speculates, Tesla is looking to hire more people for a fourth shift.
The Fremont-based car brand currently employs around 10,000 at its factory in Grunheide, Germany and it has recently marked the important milestone of assembling 5,000 vehicles per week here, which corresponds to approximately 250,000 units per year.
Gallery: Tesla Giga Berlin (Tesla Gigafactory 4)
The next step is to double the weekly stats and go for an annual production rate of 500,000 cars, and then up the ante again with the ultimate goal of making up to one million vehicles per year in Germany.
The company led by Elon Musk has already received partial approval from the local government for future expansion and the careers page on its official website is currently listing multiple open positions for manufacturing and construction workers, indicating a need for more employees that will work towards achieving the bigger production goals.
Tesla only makes the Model Y all-electric crossover at its Berlin Gigafactory, which is fast becoming one of the best-selling EVs in Europe. In January, the American crossover was sold in a little over 7,000 units across the Old Continent, outselling all the other EVs on the market, including the much more affordable Dacia Spring, which was sold in 4,242 units in the first month of the year.
At the same time, Tesla sold nearly 29,000 Model Ys in the United States in January and a total of almost 50,000 vehicles, putting it comfortably in the lead in the luxury car segment, where BMW managed to deliver around 31,000 cars in the same period.
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