What's Going On With Tesla Stock Tuesday?

Tesla Inc TSLA shares are trading lower Tuesday after one of the company’s factories had to halt production due to a nearby arson attack.

What Happened: Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin suffered a power outage and was forced to halt production on Tuesday following a suspected arson attack that caught a nearby electricity pylon on fire, per Reuters.

The fire has been put out by German authorities and did not spread to the Tesla manufacturing site, but it’s still impacting production Tuesday morning. A Tesla spokesperson reportedly confirmed that the site had been evacuated and production had been stopped.

A far-left activist organization named the Volcano Group has claimed responsibility for the incident. The group reportedly published a 2,500-word attack on the EV maker and its CEO Elon Musk.

“These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth or they're puppets of those who don't have good environmental goals,” Musk said in response on X.

“Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm.”

The report indicates that local citizens voted against a motion last month that would have allowed Tesla to clear a forest to expand the manufacturing capacity of the plant and build extra infrastructure. Although production at the plant has slowed, the EV maker produced 6,000 cars in a week for the first time in January.

The news comes a day after Tesla shares tumbled 7.16% after the company’s China sales fell significantly in February. According to new data from the China Passenger Car Association, Tesla sold just 60,365 vehicles made in China last month, down 15.51% from January and down 18.87% year-over-year.

See Also: Ross Gerber Says Tesla Should Be Seeing ‘Rally Period’ Now Because Cybertrucks Are Selling ‘Left And Right’ But Earnings Are Going Down: ‘That Needs To Be Addressed’

TSLA Price Action: Tesla shares were down 2.92% at $182.64 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro.

Photo: courtesy of Tesla.