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BMW puts €400m into electric car race

The world's leading luxury car maker, BMW, said on Friday it will invest €400 million by 2013 to produce an electric car as German manufacturers try to catch up with global rivals.

Published: 5 November 2010 14:22 CET

BMW puts €400m into electric car race

Angela Merkel helps launch the BMW Megacity. Photo: DPA

BMW has begun to extend its plant in the eastern city of Leipzig in a project launched by German Chancellor Angela Merkel to produce a series model auto it has dubbed Megacity.

Norbert Reithofer, head of BMW, said in a statement that the car would be “the first production model with a carbon fibre passenger compartment.”

BMW formed a joint venture last year with SGL Carbon, a German specialist in the material that is mostly used at present in sports cars owing to its strong resistance, light weight, and high cost.

The first two qualities are well suited to the kind of electric vehicles now under development.

But German manufacturers of powerful sedans and sports utility vehicles have fallen behind competitors in Asia and the United States in the field of electric cars.

The Japanese brand Nissan, for example, is set to launch sales of its Leaf model in December.

Daimler, the owner of Mercedes-Benz, forecasts a roll-out of an electric Smart car in 2012, and Audi, owned by Volkswagen, foresees a launch of its e-tron at the end of that year.

VW plans to add a model of its own in 2013.

On Thursday, the European Federation for Transport and Environment singled out BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen for lagging behind in effort to produce cars that will meet an EU target of 130 grammes of CO2 per kilometre (g/km) by 2015.

AFP/dw

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From lizards to water, eco-bumps snag Tesla's giant Berlin car factory

Tesla's gigafactory outside the doors of Berlin. dpa-Zentralbild | Patrick Pleul

“When I saw on TV that the Tesla factory was going to be built here, I couldn’t believe it,” said Steffen Schorch, driving his trusty German-made car.

The 60-year-old from Erkner village in the Berlin commuter belt has become one of the faces of the fight against the US auto giant’s first European factory, due to open in the Brandenburg region near Berlin in July.

“Tesla needs far too much water, and the region does not have this water,” said the environmental activist, a local representative of the Nabu ecologist campaign group.

Announced in November 2019, Tesla’s gigafactory project was warmly welcomed as an endorsement of the “Made in Germany” quality mark – but was immediately met with opposition from local residents.

Demonstrations, legal action, open letters – residents have done everything in their power to delay the project, supported by powerful
environmental campaign groups Nabu and Gruene Liga.

Tesla was forced to temporarily suspend forest clearing last year after campaigners won an injunction over threats to the habitats of resident lizards and snakes during their winter slumber.

READ MORE: Is Germany’s Volkswagen becoming ‘the new Tesla’ as it ramps up e-vehicle production?

And now they have focused their attention on water consumption – which could reach up to 3.6 million cubic metres a year, or around 30 percent of the region’s available supply, according to the ZDF public broadcaster.

The extra demand could place a huge burden on a region already affected by water shortages and hit by summer droughts for the past three years.

Local residents and environmentalists are also concerned about the impact on the wetlands, an important source of biodiversity in the region.

Tesla Street

“The water situation is bad, and will get worse,” Heiko Baschin, a spokesman for the neighbourhood association IG Freienbrink, told AFP.

Brandenburg’s environment minister Axel Vogel sought to play down the issue, saying in March that “capacity has not been exceeded for now”.

But the authorities admit that “the impact of droughts is significant” and have set up a working group to examine the issue in the long term.

The gigafactory is set to sprawl over 300 hectares – equivalent to approximately 560 football fields – southwest of the German capital.

Tesla is aiming to produce 500,000 electric vehicles a year at the plant, which will also be home to “the largest battery factory in the world”,
according to group boss Elon Musk.

In a little over a year and a half, swathes of coniferous forest have already been cleared to make way for vast concrete rectangles on a red earth base, accessed via the already iconic Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street).

German bureaucracy

The new site still has only provisional construction permits, but Tesla has been authorised by local officials to begin work at its own risk.

Final approval depends on an assessment of the project’s environmental impact – including the issue of water.

In theory, if approval is not granted, Tesla will have to dismantle the entire complex at its own expense.

But “pressure is being exerted (on the regulatory authorities), linked to Tesla’s significant investment”, Gruene Liga’s Michael Greschow told AFP.

In early April, Tesla said it was “irritated” by the slow pace of German bureaucracy, calling for exceptions to the rules for projects that help the environment.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier agreed in April that his government “had not done enough” to reduce bureaucracy, lauding the gigafactory as a “very important project”.

Despite Germany’s reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often held up by bureaucracy criticised as excessive by the business community.

Among the most embarrassing examples are Berlin’s new airport which opened last October after an eight-year delay and Stuttgart’s new train station, which has been under construction since 2010.

Brandenburg’s economy minister, Joerg Steinbach, raised the possibility in February that the Tesla factory could be delayed beyond its July planned opening for the same reason.

SEE ALSO: Tesla advertises over 300 jobs for new Gigafactory near Berlin

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