Watch Elon Musk dance with delight as Tesla unveils its first electric vehicle from its German Gigafactory.

Tesla's first European production base in Germany represents the single-largest investment in the German automobile sector in recent history.

Thursday, March 24, 2022 | Chimniii Desk

As he handed the first batch of Model Y electric automobiles built at Tesla's newest Gigafactory in Germany, a jubilant Elon Musk broke into a spontaneous dance motion. Tesla's long-awaited electric vehicle and battery manufacturing plant, dubbed Gigafactory, recently went operational, producing the first batch of the company's Model Y crossover.

Elon Musk, the unconventional CEO of Tesla Inc, is generally very restrained in his public appearances, but the video filmed inside the factory has been making the rounds on social media platforms and earning plaudits from Netizens. On the other side, he is somewhat eccentric on Twitter.

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30 clients and their families were treated to loud music as they saw their gleaming new automobiles for the first time via a flashy, neon-lit Tesla branded tunnel, clapping and cheering as Tesla Chief Executive Musk danced and joked with fans. "This is an exciting day for the plant," Musk added, calling it "another step toward a more sustainable future."

Musk stated that a test version of Tesla's new "Full Self-Driving" software will be released in Europe next year, subject regulatory permission. "It's quite tough to accomplish full self-driving in Europe," he told manufacturing workers on Tuesday, adding that there is still a lot of work to be done to deal with tricky driving scenarios in Europe, where roads differ greatly from nation to country.

Musk had wanted to start producing at the factory eight months ago, but difficulties in obtaining licences and local concerns over the plant's environmental impact slowed things down. While Tesla awaited its German licence, it was compelled to fulfil European orders from Shanghai, adding to rising shipping costs at a time when the company was dealing with industry-wide chip shortages and other supply chain issues.

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Tesla said the new owners received the Model Y Performance configuration, which costs 63,990 euros ($70,500) and has a range of 514 kilometres (320 miles), and that fresh orders from the plant might be fulfilled as early as April. So far, roughly 3,500 of the plant's projected 12,000 workers have been hired, according to Tesla.

When fully operational, the factory would produce 500,000 cars per year, far exceeding the 450,000 battery-electric vehicles sold globally by German rival Volkswagen in 2021. It will also produce 50 gigawatt hours (GWh) of battery power, outperforming all other German plants. Before starting local battery manufacture, Tesla is anticipated to import batteries from China for its German-made Model Ys.