After the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin received final approval on Friday, the company went public on Sunday to hire hundreds of workers for the plant. In German, Tesla tweeted: “Berlin Gigafactory cleared to open,” along with links to more than 300 job openings at the plant, including links to supply chain, manufacturing, buildings and facilities, engineering, information Technology, Environmental Health and Safety related positions.
On Friday, Tesla received conditional approval to allow the Berlin plant to begin operations. Previously, the project had been delayed for months due to objections related to environmental permits.
The factory, Tesla’s first gigafactory in Europe, is a key part of Musk’s plan to challenge rivals such as Volkswagen and BMW on German soil. Tesla announced plans to build the Berlin Gigafactory in 2019, and construction began a year later. The plant could eventually reach a capacity of 500,000 electric vehicles a year.
Tesla still needs to prove the plant meets several conditions, including water and air pollution controls. Musk has said that expanding mass production at the Berlin factory will take much longer than building the factory.