Tesla is again confronted with risks for its Gigafactory in Grünheide

TruckElectric

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Environmental protection associations complain about incomplete building application documents for the planned Gigafactory. That could delay the approval process.

Tesla Cybertruck Tesla is again confronted with risks for its Gigafactory in Grünheide 5-format2020

View over the construction site

More than 100 people are currently working on the site.

(Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger for Handelsblatt)

Berlin The Brandenburg Prime Minister Dietmar Woidke is sure of his cause. So far, he has not known any problem that would stand in the way of a final building permit for the Tesla plant in Grünheide, said the SPD politician at the beginning of October. "I assume that a legally impeccable permit is possible here."

But it's not quite as simple as Woidke portrays it. With provisional permits and at your own risk, the US electric car company has been pulling its factory 35 kilometers southeast of Berlin for months. If everything goes according to plan, up to 12,000 employees will produce 500,000 vehicles annually here from summer 2021. But now there is new criticism of the project.

After the public discussion of the project documents , nature and environmental protection associations speak up and question the project. "The whole process is unacceptable," said Michael Ganschow, state manager of the Brandenburg Green League , the Handelsblatt.

Ganschow accuses the Brandenburg state government of wanting to create a fait accompli. His concerns about the settlement of the planned Gigafactory at the Grünheide location are great: "Here a project is being pushed ahead at the wrong location, which, due to its dimensions, requires extensive technical control." An orderly procedure is not possible under this time pressure.


At a public hearing that ended in early October, conservationists and local residents discussed the more than 400 objections with representatives from the State Environment Agency and Tesla . "The discussion gives us the opportunity to answer fact-based," a Tesla spokesman had previously assured. There would be no questions left unanswered.

Associations are calling for the planning documents to be interpreted again

Now the opposite seems to be the case. During the eight-day hearing, objections were raised that could make it necessary to re-interpret the planning documents for the new Gigafactory. Thus , the carmaker sees suddenly confronted with risks to his factory.

The planning documents are still too vague in many places, said Ganschow. "During the hearing, the nature conservation associations demanded various missing documents, plans and expert reports that neither the company nor the authorities delivered in time." That is why her lawyer Thorsten Deppner called for the entire planning documents to be re-interpreted during the discussion. "The proper discussion," said Ganschow, "is only possible if all plans are available to the public."

Tesla Cybertruck Tesla is again confronted with risks for its Gigafactory in Grünheide 4-format2020

Construction site of the Gigafactory

So far, Tesla is building with provisional authorizations for individual construction phases.

(Photo: Marc-Steffen Unger for Handelsblatt)


The Green League is not alone with its criticism: "The authorities would do well to deal intensively with the applications now and ensure transparency," said Christiane Schröder, managing director of the Brandenburg Nature Conservation Union (Nabu) , the Handelsblatt. "Otherwise the procedure would be very vulnerable."

The Nabu also criticizes the fact that the company's plans sometimes do not correspond to the documents. “All of this is due to the time pressure, but it does not allow a reasonable examination of the overall project,” said Schröder. "We do not want to prevent the settlement, but our concern is to ensure that nature, the environment and humans are adequately taken into account in the process."

The infrastructural connection is also unclear

There are certainly technical solutions for everything, "but we do not allow ourselves to be fobbed off with incomplete and long-outdated planning documents, some of which are based on research data that is almost ten years old, as is the case, for example, with the groundwater measurement data ," criticized the Nabu expert. When asked, Tesla did not respond to the associations' criticism.

FDP economic politician Michael Theurer sharply criticized the nature conservationists' approach. "They have to be asked how serious they really mean it with their commitment to e-mobility," said the Deputy Chief of the Liberals in the Bundestag. "Anyone who calls for the electric car in Sunday speeches for climate protection reasons must not prevent the construction of an electric car factory on Monday."


For Theurer, the associations' tough struggle over every single aspect of the legal planning requirements and the building permit for the Tesla settlement also reveals how “urgent” it is to simplify and accelerate planning and approval procedures. For the time being, in addition to the procedurally flawless handling of all objections, the only thing left is that the state and federal government seek talks with the environmental associations.

Above all, the Green League criticizes the high total water requirement of the factory. Tesla had announced that it wanted to implement a "next generation paint shop" in the Gigafactory. "According to the documents available to us, not even the current state of the art would be maintained in the paint shop", so the allegation. According to Ganschow, the paint shop consumes water to an extent “that the average European car manufacturer no longer needs it”.

The infrastructural connection of the area is also unclear. A train connection is no longer mentioned in the current application. On the other hand, truck traffic will triple to 1257 trucks a day without empty trips. The construction of such an industrial plant in a drinking water protection area also requires transparency of all technical data in order to be able to discuss necessary safety issues at a public hearing.

"During the discussion there were open questions about some topics that still need to be clarified," said the managing director of the Brandenburg regional association of the German Transport Club (VCD), Anja Hänel, the Handelsblatt.

The VCD takes a critical view of the factory's forecast traffic. The approval documents submitted showed different information on traffic in the individual chapters. “Unfortunately, Tesla did not provide any information on how the arrival and departure traffic would be spatially distributed,” said Hänel. In order to relieve the neighboring towns, it was only stated that the traffic for arriving and departing employees should be handled primarily via the adjacent Autobahn 10.

According to Hänel, the “main problem” is that precisely such calculations for temporal and spatial distribution were missing for the official approval. "That is why we asked for a clarification of the facts." Because ensuring the traffic development is a prerequisite for the approval.

The Brandenburg state government points out that the procedure is still ongoing. "All applications and information presented in the discussion are checked by the licensing authority," said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of the Environment in Brandenburg. That is currently in progress. Further statements can only be made after this test

SOURCE: HANDLESBLATT
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Capt_Roy

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I've never seen before a place more undeserving of a Tesla factory than Grunheide. Sure, big oil/big automakers in Germany are to blame, but the levels of bureaucracy delays is astounding. I'm sure there are other, more deserving European neighbors that would accept Tesla's factory with open arms.
 

Sirfun

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This is just one chapter, in this sure to be spellbinding story. There are lots of corporations, unions and individuals who are not happy seeing this kind of change. They all will resist this change for awhile. This is part of the Ying & Yang of life. Of course, all sides of any issue in life can and will be debated. I'm sure part of Elon's thought process of jumping into the lions den to build his factory where it is, had a lot to do with the large pool of talent in the area. Unfortunately it's human nature to resist change and most if not all of that talent pool was happy with the way things were before EV's came into focus.
 


ldjessee

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It is so funny that trees planted to make cardboard and were all of one species (a monoculture) are some kind of issue?

I can understand worry about ground water run off, but a 10 year old survey of the ground water situation... how would it have changed that much in 10 years?

And I hope it is just those wanting to see Tesla delayed behind this, because otherwise these people supposedly concerned with the environment want to halt or slow down the building of a factory that will help replace so many polluting vehicles that are so much worse for the environment... Sorry, I will just get off my soap box and not turn this into a rant.
 

Frank W

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And Tesla has agreed to plant 3 times the amount of trees so the people shouldn’t have anything to complain about. Today’s news has a Tesla dealership in Sweden where several vehicles have been burned and they suspect arson. Lots of haters out there sadly. Probably funded by big oil....kidding, but you never know.
 

ldjessee

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Same thing here with highway work, they had to cut them down before nesting season. If not, they had to wait until nesting season was over for the year and could start cutting down trees again.
 

TechOps

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A short story to paint the scene of Germany.. I was in Germany for the past two weeks and just got home to Texas on Sunday night. It's a beautiful fall season right now, with lots of colorful foliage, nippy air, and light rain like a New England autumn. I left the day before their new monthlong Coronavirus lockdown took effect (yesterday).

Last week, I was talking to a couple of German friends about the new factory and its challenges. My friend commented that Germans just love to complain about everything; they consider it their duty. I didn't fully understand the level of complaining, until reading this article today.

The new Berlin airport opened this past Saturday, at a cost of 3x the original estimate ($6B vs. $2B), and it took 14 years to build. In contrast, the Tegel airport was built right after WW2 and took 90 days to complete. This is how the pace of infrastructure projects in Germany (and probably EU in general) has changed. Things there move very slowly; that's part of the charm of the place. The three hour drive from the northeast of the country to the Berlin airport was very relaxing, and halfway there I realized it was because there was ZERO advertising and you could just enjoy the countryside.

I'm not sure if people here understand how firmly implanted in old ways of thinking the German auto industry is, unless you've done some research on it and read some of the quotes from industry executives. I expect that there will be *significant* additional opposition and the forces of the auto industry (which employ, directly or indirectly, a substantial portion of the German population) will do their best to resist change as much as possible.

My prediction is that the factory will get built, but there will be delays and lots of bureaucracy along the way. I won't be surprised if Giga Texas starts producing cars before (or very soon after) Grünheide.
 


Frank W

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I’ve lived in Germany twice for a total of 5 years and your description of it brings back fond memories of the roadways and being around people who knew how to drive and will gladly move over to let you pass. A quick flash of your lights or even your left turn signal as you came up on a slower driver and they would pull over and didn’t think anything about it. Here people sometimes get an attitude about it for no reason. No offense to slow drivers but you don’t have to hold everybody else back for no reason! End rant. :)
 

TechOps

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I’ve lived in Germany twice for a total of 5 years and your description of it brings back fond memories of the roadways and being around people who knew how to drive and will gladly move over to let you pass. A quick flash of your lights or even your left turn signal as you came up on a slower driver and they would pull over and didn’t think anything about it. Here people sometimes get an attitude about it for no reason. No offense to slow drivers but you don’t have to hold everybody else back for no reason! End rant. :)
Ah yes.. there is ZERO lingering in the passing lane. Love it!
 

Oobbeeddoo

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madquadbiker

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