It’s interesting what kind of talent one needs for a factory. Engineers? I doubt... These will be simple workers, couple equipment operators with some education. All the blueprints are coming from Tesla’s HQ anyway, so not much engineering needed. There is also Tesla in Germany that does all the engineering: https://teslagrohmannautomation.de/de/
You are thinking of engineering the cars itself. However, in a factory like this, engineering is much more than that. Engineering, maintaining, and improving the factory won't be an exclusive gig from across the Atlantic (+ Great Plains + Rockys).
Aside from that, Brandenburg is rich grounds for the other staff a factory needs. You can combine cheaper EU-labor with mid-range jobs very well in Germany.
The only thing Tesla could face which it wont like are unions and workers rights because Germans sure won't put up with 100 hour work weeks or similar business practices.
Having real engineers with 6 years education on assembly lines is very important, and I'd say that's one of the reasons why China has so much success in manufacturing.
Without engineers among line workforce, there will be nobody to spot and correct tiny manufacturing defects and mistakes in the design that would otherwise be quietly "duct taped" and forgotten.
For my 10 years in OEM manufacturing, I haven't seen a single design that the factory people didn't send back to the client without a long "to fix" list. And those designs were coming from rather serious clients, with serious in house engineering.
Do you have any proof that Tesla was going to build a plant in the UK before? Or are you overlooking how Germany has manufacturing and infrastructure more suited to building cars over all other EU members, including the UK!
He also said “Some of the best cars in the world are made in Germany. Everyone knows that German engineering is outstanding, for sure, and that’s part of the reason why we are locating our gigafactory Europe in Germany. We are also going to create an engineering and design centre in Berlin.”
Thing is with Brexit, you have 50% wanting to leave, 50% wanting to stay and a proportional represented result being playout out by a first past the post system, yielding all sorts of chaotic stagnation. Which all gets blamed upon the initial proportional vote.
Hence if any business is asked about the UK, the whole uncertainty and chaos will come up in the subject. Just that people love to presume that was the single reason and without that things would be different. I don't see any reason or indication from Elon or Tesla to of picked the UK, even without the current climate of chaos and limbo finger pointing politics.
Plus, while congratulating the winners, it's more tactful to mention the reasons that made you decide in their favour rather than saying "we would have gone to the UK, if not for Brexit".
I don't know, without Brexit Tesla might have chosen Germany anyway.
There are many good reasons that have already been cited why Germany makes sense, additionally when you're building cars for a whole continent, for shipping reasons it makes sense to build a factory in the middle of it rather than an island on the side.
Britain has excellent sea connections, several existing large car manufacturers take advantage of that. (Germany does too, with river transport.) I doubt the land transport makes a significant difference either -- a good rail network extends across the whole EU, and there is car manufacturing in Spain, Romania etc.
I'm not going to pretend I'm in any way able to make a reasonable comparison, but companies like Ford and Nissan appear to have had no intention to move their UK manufacturing to Germany.
I work in a factory and support factories in other countries. Headquarters have many engineers, satellite factories have only dozen. Mostly for maintenance and quality control. All the thinking and decision making happens in HQ.
