Tesla wants to expand Giga Berlin by 33% with new land purchase

Tesla's brand-spanking-new Giga Berlin factory is pretty huge as it is, occupying 300 hectares of land, which makes it among the largest commercial properties in the German state of Brandenburg. And yet, it's only going to get bigger, as a new report citing information from "official circles" reveals that Tesla is looking to purchase an additional 100 hectares of land, directly adjacent and to the east of the land it already owns.

The image below clears up what we're talking about - it's easy to read even if you don't know German. The yellow part is the land Tesla currently owns, the 300 hectares upon which the Giga Berlin is built. To the right, in red, is the land that the company is reportedly looking to buy.

Tesla will use the new land to build a freight yard and storage areas, as it looks to use rail transport as much as possible both for components coming into Giga Berlin as well as cars going out to customers. The gray line above the plots in the image is the rail line it's using.

There's still room to build additional storage space and a freight yard on the initial 300-hectare plot of land that Tesla owns, and so its decision to purchase additional land for the purpose suggests that the available land around the Giga Berlin building might be kept free for future expansions of the factory itself.

A purchase price for the additional 100 hectares Tesla wants to buy hasn't been set yet. The land belongs to the state of Brandenburg, and if Tesla gets the same price as the one it paid for the initial 300 hectares, then the new plot of land would end up costing it a cool €13 million. In order for Tesla to be able to build on the site, the local municipality must agree, and the first steps in that direction are to be taken in June.

The start of construction is unlikely to occur this year, as there's a lot of red tape to clear, and, if the sale goes through, a lot of pine trees to plant elsewhere in Brandenburg - the land Tesla wants to buy is currently occupied by a pine forest, and if it destroys that to do its thing, it has to plant a new, equivalent one somewhere else according to German regulations.

Source (in German)