Tesla CEO Elon Musk has said he plans to build the world’s largest battery cell factory at the group’s electric car factory near Berlin.

Tesla boss Elon Musk has said he plans to build the world’s largest battery cell factory at the group’s electric car factory near Berlin.

You’re here has already begun construction of a huge “gigafactory” in a wooded area in Gruenheide, south of the German capital, which is due to open next year.

The plant is Tesla’s first in Europe and is expected to produce 500,000 Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs per year.

Speaking at a European battery conference hosted by Germany’s economy ministry, Musk said battery cell production at the same German site would begin with a capacity of around 100 gigawatt hours per year, before to rise to 250 GWh per year.

At the time, the South African entrepreneur said he was “quite confident it would be the largest battery cell factory in the world”.

Electric vehicle battery production is currently dominated by Chinese, Japanese and South Korean companies, with Europe accounting for only a fraction of the market.

Musk announced his ambitious goal the same day he became the second richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg, overtaking Microsoft founder Bill Gates, after Tesla hit a market valuation of $500 billion.

Musk also said it would “make sense” to create a smaller Tesla hatchback tailored to the European market.

“In the US cars tend to be bigger… I was driving a Model X around Berlin and we had a really hard time finding a suitable parking space,” he told the conference. .

Musk added that local residents, some of whom have sued Tesla for cutting down trees to make way for the factory, will not experience “detectable amounts of toxins in the air” due to battery production at factory.