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What's Happening? Tesla in Berlin

  • zm2370
  • Oct 7, 2020
  • 5 min read

Deforestation, water consumption, workers' rights: there are many criticisms of the Tesla factory that is to be built near Grünheide close to Berlin in Germany. But which hopes are justified, which fears are to be taken seriously?

Half a million electric cars per year are soon to roll off the assembly line in Grünheide, manufactured by up to 12,000 employees. It could be the biggest industrial settlement in Brandenburg since the fall of the Berlin Wall. The hopes around the Tesla factory are gigantic: there is talk of reindustrialisation in the East. And this time it is to be environmentally friendly, with Brandenburg leading the way in the energy and transport revolution. On the other hand, citizens fear increasing traffic, some environmental associations criticise the clearing of forests and trade unions warn against exploitation at the workplace. Here a fact-check and an inventory of risks and opportunities that this mammoth project entails:

In November 2019, Tesla boss Elon Musk announced the construction of a Giga-Factory near Berlin, and in December the company submitted an almost 2,000-page building permit application to the State Office for the Environment. At the beginning of 2020, the documents were on public display for a month and around 400 people looked at them. Citizens and associations had until March 5th time to submit objections to the plans. About 370 have been received. They were originally to have been discussed on March 18th in the municipal council of Erkner with Tesla representatives and all the authorities involved, but because of the spreading corona virus the meeting was cancelled.

Only after this hearing can the Federal Environmental Agency grant the building permit. Whether the authority will approve the plans in the late summer - as expected so far - seems questionable in view of the corona crisis. Frauke Zelt, spokeswoman at the Federal Environmental Agency, announced that the procedure would not be delayed by the cancellation. If the approval of all authorities involved is likely, the Land Environmental Agency can allow so-called "early measures" even before it approves the overall project. In this way, Tesla has already cleared 90 hectares of forest and is currently allowed to level the ground. However, if the building application is unexpectedly not approved, Tesla will have to replant the forest at its own expense. This is a condition of the early measures. The announced ground-breaking ceremony would also be such a premature measure. The current building application only covers the first stage of expansion of the factory. With further expansion stages the factory could still grow. However, new approval documents would then have to be submitted and approved. The company will probably make further expansion stages dependent on the success of the factory.

Originally a pine forest covered the 300 hectares of the Tesla property. For the first development stage, 90 of these were cleared in recent weeks. A further 60 hectares are to follow in autumn. Around 200 people, many from the Tesla-critical citizens' initiative, have protested repeatedly against the clearing of the pine forest. The NABU local association Fürstenwalde is also critical of the clearing. Members of the Green League and a Bavarian association, which also criticises renewable energies, had interrupted the clearing work in the meantime by means of an emergency motion. The fact is, however, that the vast majority of nature conservation associations consider the clearing of pine trees to be ecologically justifiable if new trees are planted elsewhere. Tesla is obliged by law to replant the cleared forest elsewhere. The Brandenburg land agency has already found areas throughout the state for this purpose. The aim is to create forests with an average of 50 percent foliage. These mixed forests on Brandenburg's sandy soil are rather unusual and ecologically more valuable than the pine forests that are otherwise widespread, because more animal species find a home here.

Tesla has also announced that it will go beyond this legal requirement to upgrade forests in Brandenburg. To this end, deciduous trees will be planted in existing monocultures, thus creating ecologically valuable mixed forest. The overall aim is to achieve a balance of three to one (coniferous broadleaf trees).

The forest on the Tesla site, some of which has already been cleared, is home to a number of endangered animals that need to be resettled. Almost 400 of the felled trees were suitable as bat habitats. As compensation, Tesla intends to install about 400 bat boxes in neighbouring forests. Only when they have awoken from their hibernation and left the trees will these four pits also be felled.

In addition, the levellers must avoid the four ant hills. This section may only be levelled once the ants have been resettled. Finally, several species of lizards still live on a former rubbish tip. Replacement habitats are to be built for them on neighbouring plots of land in the municipality, where the lizards will then be relocated.

Water supply is also one of the most controversial issues, provoking the fierce resistance of a local citizens' initiative. In the permit documents laid out, Tesla stated a maximum water consumption of 372 cubic metres per hour. This is approximately 3.3 million cubic metres per year, which is roughly equivalent to the annual consumption of a city with 70,000 inhabitants.

In response to the local discussion, Tesla has now made improvements and now wants to install air instead of water cooling. The plant will then only consume a maximum of two million cubic metres of water per year.

The issue of workers' rights: employees at the Tesla plant in Fremont, California, reported 80 hours a week and poor pay. Tesla has prevented the formation of a union there. In Germany too, Tesla has already clashed with IG Metall when the latter demanded higher wages at a German car supplier that Tesla had taken over.

The Brandenburg branch has founded Tesla as a so-called SE (Societas Europaea). The IG Metall union warns that the company could thus prevent employees from setting up a works council. It also fears that Tesla is undermining collective bargaining wages by offering low-paid Polish staff. Jörg Steinbach, Brandenburg's Minister of Economics, confirmed to a German newspaper that many, but probably not more than half, of the employees would come from Poland. Steinbach also stated that Tesla had to face up to the issues of collectively agreed wages and co-determination. The company merely stated that it wanted to "pay competitively and differentiate itself from competitors by offering special bonuses".

Berlin, this much is clear, does not simply roll out the carpet for everyone who promises money. Whoever wants to belong to the region must open up to it.

Sources (in German)

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