Tesla promoter Elon Musk on Tuesday announced plans to set
up a battery cell factory at its electric car manufacturing plant in Germany,
south of Berlin, which will grow to become world’s largest such unit, AFP
reported.

Musk made the announcement at the European Battery
Conference organized by the German economy ministry, on the day he surpassed
Microsoft’s Bill Gates to become the second richest person in the world when
Tesla market valuation crossed $500 billion.

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Tesla has already begun setting up the gigantic “gigafactory”
in a forested area in Gruenheide near the German capital, which is due to open
next year. It is expected to roll out 500,000 Model 3 sedans and Model Y SUVs a
year when fully up and running.  

Musk said that the plant will churn out 100 gigawatt per
hour a year initially, ramping up to 250 gigawatt per hour a year later.

Musk said that he was “pretty confident it’d be the
largest battery-cell plant in the world”.

This is the first plant in Europe by the electric car giant.
Currently, the battery manufacturing business is dominated by China, South
Korea, and Japan.

Speaking at the event, Musk hinted at venturing into small
car manufacturing, saying that smaller cars are much suitable for European
markets, unlike the US where cars are bigger.

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“In the US the cars tend to be bigger… I was driving
a Model X around Berlin and we had quite a lot of trouble finding a parking
space that could fit it,” he told the conference.

Musk also sought to allay concerns of some of the locals who
took his company to court over felling of the trees for clearing space for his
plant. He said that the battery plant will ensure that there are no “detectable
amounts of toxins in the air”.