Tesla Gigafactory Berlin production has been dipping, report says

A new report claims that Tesla Gigafactory Berlin production has been dipping under the 5,000 units per week that the automaker reported earlier this year.

When Tesla launched Model Y production at Giga Berlin, the goal was to ramp things up to 5,000 units per week.

The goal was achieved in March 2023, based on Tesla’s own announcement.

The assumption was that Tesla was still ramping up or at least maintaining the production rate, but Business Insider‘s German team is now reporting that production has actually gone down since the announcement.

They reported that Tesla Gigafactory Berlin production is now closer to 4,000 units per week (translated from German):

Tesla’s actual internal production targets are significantly lower. Internal documents from July and August show the production target of 870 vehicles per day and 4350 vehicles per week. So the target is 650 fewer cars per week than was originally announced by the US automaker in March.

The report has credibility as they shared images of Tesla’s workflow software:

The report also claims that employees are reporting that Tesla is even further reducing its production goals now below 4,000 units per week.

Some Tesla analysts are claiming that the report is nothing because Tesla already warned of lower production in Q3, but the company stated based on factory shutdowns for upgrades.

The report is not talking about shutdowns or upgrades, but a slowdown of the existing production.

Electrek’s Take

This would be a change of strategy for Tesla. We know that demand has been tough with high interest rates putting pressure on the car industry, but Tesla’s approach has been to reduce prices rather than throttle production.

Now it sounds like Tesla is open to reducing production.

As I said, the report has credibility, so I’d take it seriously.