Tesla’s $45m deal to acquire land outside Berlin is approved, but not out of the woods yet

A €41 million ($45 million) deal for Tesla to acquire land outside of Berlin to build its recently announced Gigafactory 4 has been approved by the state government, but it’s still not sealed yet.

Last year, CEO Elon Musk confirmed that Tesla is going to build Gigafactory 4 in the “Berlin area.”

The project will be sited on a 300-hectare plot of land next to the GVZ Berlin-Ost Freienbrink industrial park.

As expected, Tesla is going to face a lot of red tape before it can start building the factory.

One of the first steps is obviously to acquire the land, and things are moving forward on that front.

The Brandenburg parliament has approved the sale of the piece of land to Tesla for a provisional price of €41 million ($45 million).

However, Germany’s Der Tagesspiegel reported that Tesla is not planning to sign for a few weeks (translated from German):

The responsible finance committee of the state parliament approved the purchase agreement with the majority of the Kenya coalitioners on Thursday afternoon, according to which the 302-hectare forest area is to be sold to Tesla for €41 million. According to the state government, the group does not want to decide on the purchase contract until mid-January. The committee met in a non-public meeting, as is customary for property sales. The decision was made after almost two hours of debate.

Some people in the government have complained that the price-per-square-foot is low. An official value assessment is expected to happen soon, and the price might change depending on it.

Tesla is also running into some other issues with the deforestation process that needs to happen at the site.

Even though Tesla committed to planting three times as many trees as it is going to cut down, it is a controversial process due to the complex nature of the ecosystem.

One of those complexities is that the forest is home to many animals, and one of them is an endangered species of bat, which Tesla is going to have to move.

The automaker is also going to have to look for unexploded World War II bombs in the area before cutting down the trees.

Musk said that Tesla will build “batteries, powertrains, and vehicles, starting with Model Y” at Gigafactory 4 in Germany.

They are aiming for a start of production in July 2021, but they have to start construction soon in order to stick to the timeline.

At least, it sounds like they are now just a signature away from acquiring the land.