Tesla's Giga Berlin Said To Produce Only Black And White Model Ys

What happened to "the world's most advanced paint shop" Elon Musk promised in 2020?

By: Dan Mihalascu

Jul 12, 2022 at 7:19am ET

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If you live in Europe and are planning to buy a Tesla Model Y, you'd better like how the electric crossover looks in black or white because those are the only choices you're going to get.

These two exterior paints are the only ones being applied to the electric crossover at Tesla's Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg, according to a report from Germany's Automobilwoche.

Customers who order the Model Y in Solid Black or Pearl White Multi Coat can expect to have their vehicles delivered in October, which is a reasonable delivery timeline. However, those who prefer to have their Model Y painted red, blue or silver will have wait until March 2023 at the earliest to get their EVs delivered from Tesla's Gigafactory Shanghai in China.

The Tesla Model Y entered production at Giga Berlin in March 2022, but it's unclear whether it has been built from the beginning with only black or white paint options or that's a more recent development. Either way, that's surprising considering what Elon Musk said about the Berlin plant's paint shop two years ago, when he promised "the world's most advanced paint shop, with more layers of stunning colors that subtly change with curvature."

Gallery: Tesla Giga Berlin (Tesla Gigafactory 4)

According to industry sources cited by the report, there have been problems at the paint shop since production began in March; no details were provided, though.

In related news, production at Tesla's German plant will take a planned 12-day break starting this week to optimize manufacturing during the summer vacation.

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The main objectives with the plant overhaul are to ensure car bodies only spend 45 seconds at each manufacturing station, instead of the current 90 seconds, and move to a three-shift operation. This also applies to the paint shop.

In the second quarter of this year, Tesla's new plants in Texas and Germany only contributed about 6,000 cars to the company's overall production of 258,580 units, according to analysts. The EV maker's annual production target for Giga Berlin is 500,000 vehicles, but Elon Musk warned that it won't be easy hitting that target.

Last month, he said the Texas and Berlin plants are "losing billions of dollars" as they have hardly any output and require massive expenses to operate. The executive likened the new plants to "gigantic money furnaces" and said it will take more effort to bring them to high-volume production than it took to build them in the first place.