FRANKFURT : Tesla Inc. plans to invest 4 billion euros ($4.4 billion) in its newly announced factory in Berlin that will produce up to 150,000 cars annually, Bild reported on Sunday, without saying how it obtained the information.

The first production line at Tesla’s Berlin factory, unveiled by founder and Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk earlier this week, will manufacture the company’s SUV Model Y, which could be produced as early as 2021, according to the newspaper. The electric car maker could receive about 300 million euros in subsidies subject to approval by the European Union, Bild reported.

Musk has until now relied on a single auto-assembly plant in Fremont, California, to build a company that has a market value of more than $63 billion. The Berlin site is to initially employ 3,000 people, a number that could eventually rise to 7,000, according to Bild.

Tesla’s spending is dwarfed by a plan announced by German rival Volkswagen AG on Friday. The Wolfsburg-based car maker said it will spend 60 billion euros, compared with 44 billion euros previously announced, on electric vehicles, automated driving and other new technology over a period of five years.









This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.

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