Tesla is opening the doors of its Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg to outside startups through a new “Cell Giga Challenge,” inviting them to pilot technologies inside its live battery cell production line.
The program comes as Tesla ramps 4680 cell output at Grünheide toward a planned 18 GWh of annual capacity, one of the largest cell operations in Europe.
What the Cell Giga Challenge is
The challenge is run in partnership with JUNI, a Berlin-Brandenburg startup platform operated by UNITE gGmbH and backed by Germany’s federal economics ministry and the EXIST program.
According to JUNI, the program is aimed at startups “that make battery cell manufacturing faster, better, and more scalable.” Tesla is specifically looking for solutions across five areas: materials, equipment, operations, automation, and artificial intelligence.
