Tesla's Grünheide Gigafactory Set to Grow: New Hall Over Twice the Size of Current Plant

Tesla is preparing to move ahead with a long-discussed enlargement of its German manufacturing site, and the outline of the project is now coming into focus. According to reporting from the RBB news portal, the company intends to file its approval paperwork in December, setting the stage for a build-out that would unfold over several years.

At the heart of the plan sits a second production building, which would rise on land to the north of the existing factory. At roughly 536,000 square metres, the proposed hall would be more than double the footprint of the current 219,000-square-metre facility. Today the plant turns out as many as 375,000 Model Y crossovers annually, but Tesla has for years floated the possibility of eventually reaching one million vehicles per year at the site. RBB notes the company has not yet specified how many additional workers might be hired; around 12,000 people are currently employed there.

Construction of the new hall is not expected to get underway before 2027, and it remains undecided which models would be assembled inside it. Citing observers, the Märkische Oderzeitung suggests that a further vehicle — beyond the Model Y — is likely to be added to the line-up.

The overall programme is structured in three phases, each of which requires its own partial approval. The first such approval was granted in October 2024 by Brandenburg’s state environmental agency, following an application Tesla lodged back in March 2023. That initial stage centred on upgrading the existing building and adding storage and logistics space on the roughly 70 hectares in the site’s northern section. The second phase would cover the new production hall, while the third would take in equipment and a freight rail station on the premises. Although all three phases were applied for within the 2023 partial-approval process, additional documents are still outstanding for the later two stages.

Water remains a particularly sensitive subject in Grünheide, and the plans address it directly. The enlarged facility and a bigger workforce would draw more water overall, yet because treatment would be handled on-site, no extra sanitary wastewater would result. That means the fresh-water and wastewater volumes contractually agreed with the Wasserverband Strausberg-Erkner should be sufficient for the expansion, with the upgraded wastewater treatment handled by Tesla itself inside the factory grounds.