Walking along the narrow shoulder of a busy road in Brandenburg State—about twenty miles outside of Berlin—you’d be hard-pressed to know you’re looking at what many consider the future of capitalism. Every so often, bright red buses whip around the bend as they ferry workers to and from the expansive, rapidly-growing campus of a Tesla “Gigafactory,” the company’s European mothership now reportedly churning out as many as 1,000 electric cars a week. The buses, however, run on diesel.
The campus, known as “Giga Berlin,” spans the length of some 60 soccer fields. It’s on the frontlines of something climate advocates in the U.S. might envy amid our still sluggish progress on climate (Inflation Reduction Act gains notwithstanding): green industrial policy. Germany is betting that it can be a global leader in the energy transition, and use its sizable manufacturing footprint as a base for building a cutting-edge clean energy sector.
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