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Tesla Giga Berlin event details expansion plans ahead of community vote
Tesla held an informational event at its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg on Sunday, detailing its expansion plans ahead of a community vote on the proposed project.
The event was put on by Tesla in the plant in the lobby of the plant, located in Grünheide, Germany, and the automaker included graphics and additional details on its expansion proposal for a rail yard and logistics project, as shared on X by Tobias Lindh on Sunday. The event was open to the local community, and it comes ahead of a month-long period beginning next week, in which citizens will be able to vote on the project.
The post included the images Tesla had on display for the event, featuring the automaker’s plans for an in-house freight station with a siding shift to the railway, as well as additional storage to keep a larger bank of materials on site, and other social and employee facilities including training rooms, a competence center for trainees, and a childcare area.
Lindh clarified that this event was held not for the site’s Phase 2 construction plans, but that this event was regarding expansion to the east of the factory, specifically. This part of the expansion, as Tesla explains in one sign, will not be adding any production facilities and, thus, will not increase water consumption—a primary concern for many in the region.
Today @Tesla is hosting an information event for the citizens of #Grünheide in the Lobby at #GigaBerlin about the expansion.
The citizens will be able to vote for the new development plan for one month, starting next week.
The plan is important for the rail yard and logistics. pic.twitter.com/inMXUQFBHk
— Tobias Lindh (@tobilindh) January 14, 2024
According to one sign at the event, Tesla is holding citizens’ consultation hours every Thursday from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Giga Berlin lobby, and voting will take place over a month-long period, beginning next week.
In response to another user in the thread asking what the general sentiment was like at the event, Lindh said he thought the information and the event itself were beneficial, despite some vocal opposition to Tesla.
“As far as I can tell, most people are positive about Tesla,” Lindh wrote on X. “There is just a small loud group against Tesla. But it’s important that they are all voting, and not just the loud small group. I think that the information event today also has a very positive impact.”
You can see several of Lindh’s photos from the many signs at the event below, as translated from German to English.
Credit: Tobias Lindh | X Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tobias Lindh | X Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X) Credit: Tesla (via Tobias Lindh | X)
Tesla has been working toward expanding Giga Berlin for several months, waiting throughout much of last year to gain approval for the proposals. After being approved in July, the company’s plans were rejected by the Strausberg-Erkner Water Association (WSE) for its overall Phase 2 plans due to water scarcity, although Tesla has said it can perform the expansions without increasing water consumption.
In October, the Brandenburg State Office of the Environment called the objections to Tesla’s expansion plans a “farce,” while Minister of Agriculture Axel Vogel pointed out that Giga Berlin uses significantly less water than it’s even approved for—and far less than many other local companies.
Tesla highlights water recycling efforts at its Gigafactory Berlin
What are your thoughts? Let me know at zach@teslarati.com, find me on X at @zacharyvisconti, or send your tips to us at tips@teslarati.com.
Elon Musk
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
SpaceX’s Starship flew successfully Friday, landing both stages and deploying its first Starlink V3 satellites.
Starship’s thirteenth test flight delivered exactly what SpaceX needed with a clean liftoff, two successful stage recoveries, and the first real payload the vehicle has ever carried to space. Booster 20 and Ship 40 lifted off at 5:51 p.m. CT from Starbase, and by the time the mission wrapped roughly an hour later, both halves of the rocket had done exactly what they were supposed to do.
Booster 20 separated from Ship 40 a few minutes into the flight and stuck a controlled splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico about six minutes after liftoff. That is a meaningful turnaround from Flight 12 in May, when the booster lost several engines during its boostback burn before a hard water landing attempt.
Starship as seen from Starlink satellites pic.twitter.com/e2hvfmnewh
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 25, 2026
Starship 40’s performance was arguably the bigger win. The vehicle deployed the first 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites Starship has ever carried, then flew a suborbital arc to a landing in the Indian Ocean that SpaceX commentator Dan Huot called the company’s softest splashdown yet. “This is a dream scenario for this team that’s trying to get this heat shield data,” Huot said on the live broadcast, according to Space.com’s live coverage. “I’m a little over the moon right now. Wow. Lucky number 13.”
Unlike the mass simulators SpaceX flew on Flight 12, these were production Starlink V3 satellites, meant to extend solar arrays and antennas and attempt to link with the broader constellation before reentering minutes later. Getting real hardware through a full deploy sequence on only the second flight of the V3 generation keeps Starship on schedule for the payload work NASA is counting on for future Artemis lunar landings.
What an awesome launch, really seems like everything went super well and it was all incredibly smooth.
SpaceX is awesome. Very interested to see how the market will respond on Monday pic.twitter.com/KSHmyBfV55
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 25, 2026
The flight also arrives at a moment when SpaceX needed a win. SPCX has traded below its $135 IPO price since mid-July, as Teslarati reported when the mission slipped to Friday, and short interest has climbed to roughly a third of the tradable float. A clean flight will not fix a balance sheet, but it does answer the one question SpaceX absolutely needed answered this week: whether the fixes made after the July 16 abort would hold up under real flight conditions. They did, on both stages, on the first try after the redesign.
SpaceX has not set a target date for Flight 14, though the company has said it wants to push toward an orbital attempt on the next mission. After Friday, that goal looks a lot more within reach.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner in Los Angeles dominated the company’s global usage rankings after just one year, proving the concept is more than just a one-off novelty location that will fade away.
The performance could incite the company to build more locations, something that CEO Elon Musk has hinted at for some time.
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner delivered 21.2 GWh of energy in its first year of operation, the company’s head of Charging, Max de Zegher, revealed on X. Of the top 10 most utilized Supercharger locations in Tesla’s global infrastructure, the Diner in Los Angeles was the most used by drivers, and it wasn’t particularly close:
Tesla Diner opened exactly 1 year ago. Inspiring that futuristic places like this exist.
It’s our highest usage Supercharger in the world: 21.2 GWh delivered in a year, 1.6k sessions/day.
Top 10 Superchargers by energy delivered: https://t.co/9YvJ8lw696 pic.twitter.com/koB3AUJHws
— Max (@MdeZegher) July 21, 2026
On its launch day one year ago, nobody was too sure what the Tesla Diner would be about. It seemed like an interesting concept, and considering it had been in the works for years, it was a highly anticipated launch that many were looking forward to.
Based on its success, we could see additional Diners with Superchargers built throughout the United States, and potentially beyond. Musk has said on several occasions that the company would be willing to bring the Diner idea to more markets.
Tesla makes major change at Supercharger Diner amid epic demand
Of the markets that Musk has mentioned, both Palo Alto and Austin have come to be perceived as ideal selections. However, there are no concrete plans as of now to build new Supercharger Diners anywhere; the location on Santa Monica Boulevard will remain the exclusive spot to pick up Tesla-inspired eats, at least for the time being.
Tesla short sellers won big following the company’s massive fall on Wall Street after it reported subpar Earnings on Wednesday.
Tesla short sellers collected about $4.12 billion in single-day profits on Thursday, according to Bloomberg. Shares fell as much as 15 percent during Thursday’s session. It closed as one of the worst days for Tesla on Wall Street in the past three years.
Investors sold off the stock after Tesla said it would aggressively direct its spending toward AI and its Optimus robot project. The company had record revenues, which were driven by one of the strongest quarters in terms of vehicle deliveries in company history.
However, it missed EPS estimates by reporting just $0.33, a far cry from the $0.53 analysts expected.
S3 Partners reported that about 3 percent of Tesla’s outstanding stock is sold short. Managing Director at S3, Ihor Dusaniwsky, provided the short seller’s potential profit, as well as another figure: shorts have likely had paper gains of $8.92 billion this year, as Tesla shares are down 30 percent in 2026.
Tesla (TSLA) Q2 2026 earnings results: miss on EPS, beat on revenue
Tesla has burned short sellers many times in the past, but the company’s latest Earnings Call was a chance for those skeptics to taste some payback. Although the company gave some very transparent information regarding future projects, the rollout of Robotaxi, Optimus, and Semi, many investors took their profits on Thursday.
Notable short sellers like Michael Burry have been transparent about their skepticism around Tesla shares. Burry just revealed three weeks ago that he had opened up a new short on the stock, stating he shorted Tesla shares at $416.22. “Happy it jumped back to this level,” he said in a blog post.
At the time of publication, Tesla shares were down about 3 percent and the stock was trading at $309.92.
SpaceX Starship just nailed something it’s never done before
Tesla’s Supercharger Diner probably just secured more locations
