According to CEO Elon Musk, the new Tesla factories in Grünheide near Berlin and Austin in Texas are currently losing “billions of dollars”. The reason is a lack of batteries and supply chain problems because of the situation in the Chinese ports, Musk said in a video interview published on Wednesday. Musk described the sites as “gigantic money incinerators.”
“It’s really like a gigantic roar, this sound of burning money,” Musk said in an interview with the Tesla Owners of Silicon Valley fan club. With regard to the supply chain problems in the auto industry, he described the past two years as an “absolute nightmare”. The Tesla boss warned: “We’re not over it yet”.
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Now it is a matter of keeping the company running so that the employees continue to be paid and the group does not go bankrupt. While high start-up costs and losses are relatively normal for new plants like Grünheide and Austin in the start-up phase when ramping up production, Tesla also faced challenges with its Shanghai plant. “The Covid shutdowns in China have been very, very difficult to say the least,” Musk said. The interview was conducted on May 31st, but the part with the most recent statements has only now been broadcast on the Internet.
