HAVE WE REACHED PEAK TESLA?

Tesla reached the top 50 of the Fortune 500 faster than any other company on this year's list. But with the automaker's EV market share in steady decline, CEO Elon Musk faces pressure to find his next moonshot

- Vivienne Walt

PARTS AND LABOR

Workers assemble electric vehicles at Tesla's Giga Berlin complex in Grünheide, Germany. The factory and its 11,000 workers are on track to produce 250,000 Model Y SUVs in 2023.

EVERY FOUR SECONDS, in the middle of a factory floor in eastern Germany, a deafening thump-thump blasts out as a mold slams down on a sheet of steel. The percussion is just one small part albeit one of the loudest-of the frenzied action inside the facility, as workers stoke raging smelting furnaces, and robots topped by "Godzilla" heads hoist auto bodies up onto assembly lines.

Germany is home to dozens of plants like these, but this is no ordinary car factory. After each thump-thump, two automated claws reach around the mold and retrieve an item that a certain kind of superfan can identify on sight: the dramatically curving tailgate of a Tesla Model Y.

We're inside Tesla's Giga Berlin, set amid woodlands about 24 miles from the German capital-and a crucial component of Elon Musk's multibillion-dollar effort to keep the company at the forefront of the electric-vehicle revolution.

DECELERATING

Declining profit margins and gains by rivals have deflated Tesla's share price.