Tadano cranes for Tesla’s Gigafactory

Tesla says the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg will be the most advanced production facility for electric vehicles in the world. The Model Y and other upcoming models from the brand will be manufactured there.

Construction only began at the start of 2020 and is set to be completed as early as summer 2021. Hellmich Kranservice supplied two 44m boom-version 70t Tadano ATF 70G-4s and two 110t ATF 110G-5s for this project. The all terrain cranes are used for erecting firewalls and concrete columns as well as lifting steel trusses (girders for the roof structure) and packs of roof panels.

Carsten Molitor from the Hellmich planning department said the construction is based on the ‘Lego principle’. “There are four halls in total, each measuring around 300m long and 200m wide. These will be combined into one large complex at the end.”

Hellmich Kranservice has to lift prefabricated parts of varying weights and dimensions. The concrete columns that form the basic structure have different designs and their weight ranges from 15t to 30t.  The firewalls weigh 10t, while the steel trusses and roof panels around 3t each. The steel girders alone have a total weight of around 5,000t of steel.