The damage is estimated at several hundred million euros by the director of the factory, located near Berlin.
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An action that will cost the American giant dearly. A small far-left German group claimed, on Tuesday March 5, the “sabotage” of an electrical infrastructure, forcing the Tesla group to stop its large European factory near Berlin. “With our sabotage, we set ourselves the goal of achieving the largest possible blackout of the Gigafactory” of the electric automobile manufacturer, said the “Vulkan Gruppe” in a press release. This movement, known to German intelligence, had already claimed responsibility for an arson attack on a Tesla construction site in 2021.
The manufacturer estimates that this sabotage will cost it several hundred million euros. “This represents nine-figure economic damage for us and we currently have no clear visibility as to when we will be able to resume production.”, declared André Thierig, the director of the factory, to the press. Early in the morning, an arson fire knocked out an electrical pylon located near the Tesla site, according to local authorities, which forced the group to stop production due to the power outage, which also affected the surrounding localities.
Tesla accused of polluting groundwater
“They are either the stupidest eco-terrorists on the planet, or the puppets of those who have bad environmental goals”castigated Elon Musk on his X platform. “Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, is extremely stupid”, he added. For the Vulkan group, Tesla “eat land, resources, men, labor and spits out 6,000 SUVs, killing machines and monster trucks per week”. Activists accuse the factory of “polluting the water table and consuming enormous quantities of an already scarce drinking water resource for its products”.
Inaugurated in 2022, Tesla’s Gigafactory produces the American manufacturer’s flagship SUV, the Model Y, for consumers on the continent. Its construction in a forested area of the Brandenburg region, which surrounds Berlin, has sparked opposition from environmental groups. Their concerns have been revived by Tesla’s plan to expand the site to double production capacity.