Yeah, it’s a type of train built by Siemens I have ridden countless times (in the overhead electrical version). You can find them in use all over Germany on regional and local lines and probably in most other European countries as well. This is the equivalent of buying leasing a fleet of Nissan Leafs for the use of Tesla employees and saying they have developed a new Gigafleet of Tesla vehicles.
From the article:
You see, this is actually a Siemens Mireo Plus B train. These trains have been around for a few years now and run on several other tracks in Germany. It uses lithium-titanium-oxide batteries from Japanese producer Toshiba and can travel up to 120 km (74 miles) on battery power alone. The train is then operated by Niederbarnimer Eisenbahn (NEB), a private regional railway company in Berlin and Brandenburg, and has a similar white, yellow, and black paint scheme to others operated by it. The main distinguishing feature of Tesla’s one is the Giga Train text running down the sides.
German publication SWR reports that Tesla does not own the train. Instead, it is owned by the German state of Baden-Württemberg and is actually being leased to the car manufacturer.
