Oct 15 (Reuters) - Tesla came one step closer

to achieving its planned doubling of capacity at its plant near

Berlin on Tuesday when the local environment ministry granted

approval for it to build another large hall.

The approval granted permission for the carmaker to proceed

with the first of three stages of the expansion, including

construction of infrastructure for storage facilities, a battery

cell test laboratory, and logistics areas.

All the approved construction would take place on land

already owned by the company, the ministry said.

Tesla has faced fierce local resistance to its plans to

increase the capacity of its plant, operational since 2022, from

500,000 vehicles per year to 1 million, which would make it the

biggest car plant in the country - topping Volkswagen's

Wolfsburg headquarters.

Activists living in treehouses in the woods near the plant

have been camping out for over half a year to protest against

the expansion, and earlier this year local citizens voted

against a motion to fell trees and make way for the larger site,

though their vote was not binding.

Tesla was not immediately available for comment.

The carmaker's application for approval to expand the site,

handed in in July 2023, had said the first set of changes should

become operational in the first half of 2024.

However, the plant's director, Andre Thierig, told German

media in August that the company was waiting to invest until it

was clear that demand for EVs, which has weakened in Europe,

would pick back up.

The company reported a smaller-than-expected rise in

third-quarter deliveries earlier this month as incentives and

financing deals failed to lure enough customers for its aging

electric vehicles, putting it at risk of its first-ever annual

deliveries decline after years of rapid growth.