Leftwing extremists have claimed responsibility for a dawn arson attack on an electricity pylon at the Tesla car factory in Berlin, which bosses said would halt production until the end of the week. The Vulkan (volcano) activist group released a 2,500-word letter on Tuesday claiming responsibility, stating the factory, which produces about 500,000 electric cars annually, consumed natural resources and labour and was neither ecological nor sustainable.
Electric cars have faced increasing criticism from environmental activists over concerns that their production leads to higher emissions than internal combustion engine cars and that battery production and recharging constitute an environmental burden. In targeted attacks across Europe, including Germany, electric cars have had their tyres slashed or deflated. Locally, there has been debate about Tesla's high groundwater usage in a region suffering from drought for several years, as well as dismay over forest felled for the factory premises.
A protest camp of environmentalists opposing further tree felling for expansion plans, set up around a week ago, distanced themselves from the arson attack. Tesla bosses said damages ran into hundreds of millions of euros and would halt production until the end of the week. The electricity outage affected the factory and surrounding communities in Brandenburg, leading to the factory's evacuation early Tuesday morning.
Tesla boss Elon Musk wrote on X: 'These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth or they’re puppets of those who don’t have good environmental goals.' He added, 'Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm.' Brandenburg’s interior minister, Michael Stübgen, said judicial authorities would 'severely punish' those responsible, calling the attack 'a perfidious attack on our electricity infrastructure' that cut tens of thousands off from basic services.
Tesla recently announced plans to expand the factory, the only one in Europe, which opened two years ago and employs about 12,500 workers. A local referendum last month rejected the plan, though the result is not legally binding. Tesla’s shares on the Frankfurt stock exchange fell by 2.8% following the news. Police have launched a criminal investigation into the fire and are checking the authenticity of the letter, signed Água De Pau, the name of a volcanic mountain in the Azores. In 2021, the Vulkan group claimed responsibility for a similar arson attack at the factory's building site.
