After a two-week break in production at the German Gigafactory Grünheide, where the Tesla Model Y is built, Tesla is resuming production today, February 12, 2024. Tesla itself announced the production stop in mid-January. Between January 29 and February 11, production of the Model Y in Grünheide largely stood still. In those areas where sufficient material was available, employees who were unable to work were trained and vehicle production was maintained. The reason for this was not internal conversion work, but problems in the supply chain. The attacks by the Yemeni Houthi rebels on merchant ships in the Red Sea meant that many shipments from Asia took the longer route around the African continent instead of the shorter route through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to Europe. As the plant in Grünheide relies on components from China, such as batteries, this created an unplanned gap in the supply chain. These are now available again in sufficient quantities.
Shortly before the interruption, Tesla had reached the mark of 6,000 electric cars produced in Grünheide in one week for the first time. Tesla plant manager Andre Thierig revealed this in a hidden message on X. The target for the first expansion stage is 10,000 vehicles per week, which would mean annual production of around 500,000 units. In the annual report for 2023, Tesla states the production capacity in Grünheide as 375,000 vehicles per year. In the final expansion stage, one million electric cars are to be produced per year.
