Tesla Giga Berlin’s Tesla Shuttle (TESS) may be popular, but the service seems poised to be stopped in a few weeks. The halt in the TES will result in Giga Berlin no longer using diesel trains to transport its workers to the Model Y production facility.
As noted in a report from Berliner Zeitung, Tesla’s use of diesel trains for Giga Berlin’s employees have caught a lot of criticism from the company’s skeptics. Granted, the main line towards Frankfurt (Oder) does have an electric overhead line, but the actual track to Giga Berlin, which branches off before the Fangschleuse station, still uses diesel trains.
The Tesla Giga Berlin shuttle has been quite successful so far, with the service transporting about 3,000 passengers per day. About 26 trips are taken by the trains every day, though from Monday to Friday, the first trip in the trains start at 5.01 a.m. local time. Interestingly enough, the Giga Berlin train service is open to the public, not just company employees.
#GigaBerlinBrandenburg
— Gigafactory Berlin News (@Gf4Tesla) May 31, 2024
The Tesla Shuttle with diesel-electric trains will be discontinued in mid-June.
There will be a brief interruption to train services as the new trains still need a software update.
From July, operations will resume with new battery electric trains from… pic.twitter.com/SHHknVe08u
Citing information that it was able to retrieve, Berliner Zeitung noted that the contract between the Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB) and Tesla would be ending this June. And on June 14, the diesel trains to Giga Berlin will stop operating. The two diesel trains that are currently being used for Giga Berlin will be deployed on other routes.
While the removal of the diesel trains for the Giga Berlin route would likely result in Tesla employees getting to work using other transportation options, the TES’ break will not last very long. As per the publication, the train service to Giga Berlin is planned to resume in the summer, probably around July 2024.
This time around, the train service to Giga Berlin would feature battery electric rail cars from Siemens, the publication noted. The battery electric trains reportedly need to have their software updated, so a break of several weeks for the Giga Berlin route would be needed. After this break, however, Giga Berlin employees will be getting to work on a battery electric train, which is arguably more appropriate for a company like Tesla, which makes the world’s best-selling electric car.
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