Protesters try to break into a Tesla factory, police push them back

Environmental activists have been denouncing for several months a project to expand the Grünheide site, where the American manufacturer’s “Model Y” is manufactured.

Several small groups of environmental protesters attempted to enter the Tesla factory which produces electric cars in Grünheide, near Berlin (Germany), Friday May 10. The police pushed them back, according to a law enforcement spokesperson. The latter specified that demonstrators and police officers had been injured, but he was not able to provide an assessment.

The demonstrators come from a collective of environmental protection associations, including Extinction Rebellion, Nabu and Robin des Bois. They began a long weekend of actions on Wednesday, notably establishing a camp not far from the factory. This collective, called “Disrupt Tesla”, claimed on Friday to have brought together more than a thousand people.

Some 12,000 employees on the site

Since February, activists have regularly protested against the factory expansion project. They call for the security of “the water supply” and to “real climate protection”protesting against the “bogus capitalist solutions” by Elon Musk. The American billionaire wants to expand the site by 170 hectares in order to double production, to reach one million electric vehicles per year. This “gigafactory”, Tesla’s only one in Europe, already occupies around 300 hectares, on which around 12,000 people work. This is where the “Model Y”, Tesla’s flagship SUV for the European market, is manufactured.

>> “We will not let ourselves be dislodged”: in Germany, a project to expand a Tesla factory provokes the anger of environmental activists

The project has angered environmentalists and residents, who are worried about the surrounding forest and the water table, or an increase in road traffic in the region. A local referendum was opposed by 60%, but was only advisory. The Tesla factory has been located since 2022 in Grünheide, a small town about thirty kilometers southeast of the German capital. Last March, the site was temporarily shut down, after the sabotage of an electricity pylon.