Tesla’s Model Y at the Grünheide factory, near Berlin, March 22, 2022 (POOL/AFP/Archives/Patrick Pleul)
American electric car manufacturer Tesla had to shut down production on Tuesday at its European factory near Berlin due to an arson attack, the company and local authorities said.
“In the early hours of this morning, there was a power outage on the public grid, probably due to an arson, which resulted in the shutdown of production,” a Tesla spokesperson told AFP, specifying that it had sent employees home and did not know when production could resume.
Inaugurated in 2022, this “gigafactory”, Tesla’s only one in Europe, produces the Model Y, the SUV king of electric sales on the continent and employs some 11,500 employees.
The regional government spoke of an “arson” targeting an electricity pylon near the site.
“Thousands of people have been cut off from basic supplies and put in danger,” he said in a statement, referring to an “act of sabotage”.
An investigation was opened for “suspicion of arson”, local police said.
The site of the factory located in the municipality of Grünheide, a wooded area south of Berlin, has come under fire since Telsa filed a request to expand it by 170 hectares.
During a consultative vote organized by the municipality at the end of February, residents expressed their opposition to the project and their concerns in particular regarding the significant water consumption of the “gigafactory”.
Last Thursday, environmental activists began occupying a forest near the factory to oppose the expansion plans.
They built tree houses to prevent possible work.
The police refuse to “speculate on a possible link (of the fire, editor’s note) with the camp”, a spokesperson told AFP on Tuesday.
The extension of the site, on which no final decision has been taken, is intended to double production. Currently, the German factory of Elon Musk’s group manufactures more than 250,000 electric cars per year with a long-term objective of 500,000 units.
© 2024 AFP
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