The Tesla story had two sides - Tesla was aware about the high standards that would be applied to their factory, but somehow thought "we're Tesla so they'll create all kinds of exceptions for us if we pay the right politicians". Turns out not every country is as corrupt as Tesla's home country.

> we're Tesla so they'll create all kinds of exceptions for us if we pay the right politicians

Based on what? Tesla makes extensive use of an existing capability to move on development with per-approval.

They have not received any kind of politicians helping them to avoid bureaucracy that I know of. Some local politicians have talked in support but the bureaucracy is just moving at its normal pace.

I guess they paid a fine for installing a few tanks to early but that seems like a planning issue, not some kind of 'we gone install the 2 tanks because we have political backing'.

Its not like the plant is majorly behind.

> Turns out not every country is as corrupt as Tesla's home country.

Again, based on what? What corrupt thing did Tesla do in Texas that is so different? Texas doesn't require a public meeting for input but the overall process is not actually that different.

Maybe the standards are different, but it doesn't have anything to do with corruption.

Maybe. But I think all the politicians Tesla could have bought are already owned by their German competitors.

There aren't any competitors in the state, and there has been basically no politically influential pushback, so that line of argument doesn't really make sense.

There is no overt pushback. That doesn't mean that there is none. And the presence and activity of the usual environmental NIMBY organisations like Deutsche Umwelthilfe, NABU, BUND, etc. point to at least some covert opposition, since those organisations happily serve as fronts for non-environmental interests.

And state politics, especially in the east, is rife with people using it as a stepping stone to the federal level. Famously there once were more prime ministers from the west governing the east than eastern-born ones.

Anything that's not just wild speculation of what people could be doing, although to no apparent effect?

Since it is about corruption, of course there is only wild speculation. Maybe in 20 years someone will confess in their posthumous memoirs or something. Until then, there is only speculation, inference and the recognition of parallels to cases in the past.

I mean, if the options are (a) a grand corrupt conspiracy or (b) Tesla turns out to be bad at doing a thing, I think Occam's razor would suggest (b), especially given that it's _Tesla_. This would not be their first rodeo with screwing things up.

Wait, got any source to back up the claim that those environmental organizations are corrupt fronts for business interests?

Oh thats so not true. The Brandenburg (the state) Ministerpräsident (like Gouverneur) and his team really like to be a big car producing Bundesland. We have Baden-Württemberg (Mercedes, Porsche), Bayern (BMW, Audi) and Niedersachen (VW HQ) and to some extend also NRW (biggest EU plant of Ford) and Sachsen (VW plant). But there is not a single plant Brandenburg. So to be in the game is something they really wanna happen. Especially with something that hyped like tesla. But still there are rules, and you have to follow them.

Yes, and I remember that the people watched the project with a skeptic eye. It was neither pessimistic nor optimistic, just cautious. It's just an impression though.

I don't think there is any other car factory in Brandenburg. So there would only be interference from the federal level down. Which wouldn't matter that much in my opinion.

You could be right. It's Tesla, so the thinking was probably more along the lines of "Germany will do whatever we want because we're Tesla."

They don't have to buy politicians, because every politician knows that Germany's economic fate is directly tied to them. Which isn't the case for Tesla and never will be. German auto manufacturers long know that the real competition for E-mobility isn't Tesla.

Lofty talk from the home of VW AG.

Tesla's plant is in the federate state of Brandenburg, VW is based in Lower Saxony.

VW AG isn't based in Brandenburg.

The Tesla story is widely exaggerated. So far they have gotten basically every approval they asked for quite quickly. Local politics is quite supportive of the project, because it brings a lot of jobs in an industrial-weak region. It is also not clear that the project has actually suffered any significant delays beyond some of the time plans being overly optimistic. There has been some attempts to block this project from some environmental groups and some groups posing as environmental, but their their injunctions have been quickly cast away by the courts. It is also not clear to which extend Tesla changing their plans in flight have created some delays. As the system works, some of the plan changes do reset the approval process to some extend.

While the original plan seemed to aim for starting production without a local battery plant this summer, there is no sign of starting production yet. On the other side, they already started to build a giant concrete foundation for what looks like a battery plant, this might come much earlier as initially planned. And this proceeds, like most other parts of the factory, at a very quick speed.

Germany has strict environmental regulations, but most places in the world have those by now. As long as you plan to fulfill the regulations, there should be no reason not to build in Germany.

> There has been some attempts to block this project from some environmental groups and some groups posing as environmental, but their their injunctions have been quickly cast away by the courts.

Tangent: how can environmental groups be against an electric car manufacturer? You would think they’re somewhat fighting the same fight?

A couple of general examples why environmental groups may have concerns, none specific to the Tesla story in particular, but I know have happened elsewhere:

- The location has a unique/endangered flora or fauna and building in the specific location would be a significant blow to those species.

- Ground water issues when a large area is paved, roofed or otherwise covered.

- Noise/light pollution affecting nearby residential and/or environmental areas.

- Increased traffic though connecting roads causing related issues.

It's as far as I see never about the specific industry building in the place, but rather the local effects of building in the area that need to be addressed.

Quite a few environmental groups have explicitly expressed support for the Tesla plant, as they see it as a net win for the environment. Those groups which are protesting seem to have very one sided view. They oppose any change of state, even if the trees that Tesla did cut down for the buildings were scheduled to be cut down for wood in a few years anyway. And Tesla financed planting of new, more varied trees in other areas. And some groups definitely are just pretending to be environmental while driving a political agenda.

What's the Tesla story?

They are building a factory as fast as possible, pushing the authorities to work as fast as possible and until now they only had minor difficulties which each other, considering how hard Tesla is pushing and how "slow" German bureaucracy is.

Chip making is relatively clean: sure, it uses nasty stuff, but it's nicely contained and cleanup/recycling is part of a fab. Fabs also aren't exactly a new thing in Germany (XFab, Globalfoundries (formerly AMD), ...)

And the Tesla story of ... Tesla getting quite generous permissions to rush-build a factory, Tesla rush-building the factory, sometimes going over what#s permitted and thus having some minor squabbles with the local authorities? That "story"?

Tesla's problem, from the outside, looks like they didn't ask for expert advice, or ignored it if they got it. Which seems to be a recurring problem with Telsa in technical fields, but it's interesting that it comes up in business and regulatory fields.

What problem? What could they have avoid if they had asked experts? I have been following the process in a lot of detail, as I speak German. I have no idea what you are referring to.

One issue is that the factory is located within the boundaries of the Wasserschutzgebiet Erkner/Neu Zittau, which means they have extra strict environmental safety requirements to avoid contaminating the water.

That seems like it could've been avoided, since Brandenburg doesn't have that many Wasserschutzgebiete: https://maps.brandenburg.de/apps/Wasserschutzgebiete/ (The WSG Erkner/Neu Zittau is the big blob south of Erkner, southeast of Berlin. If you zoom in far enough, you can see Tesla's factory at the blob's eastern border.)

Telsa knew very well about the Wasserschutzgebiet. The additional measures you have to take is not actually that relevant or expensive.

The location they ended up with, was suggested by the government of Brandenburg. It was one of a few locations.

And selecting a location has many, many, many factors. Tesla simply decided that the extra cost for that environment was less important then the other factors. Such as transportation infrastructure and likely many others.

Simply suggesting that they didn't know what they were doing because of the location they picked is not really defensible.

We also have no indication that the regulatory approval is delayed because of that specific issue.

But Tesla is the problem here, not Germany. Tesla is notorious for breaking government rules.