EV giant Tesla Inc TSLA reiterated its commitment to resume full production at its gigafactory in Berlin as soon as possible following an arson attack on Tuesday.
What Happened: “We will not allow criminal offenses and acts of terrorism to deter us from our mission to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and will restart the factory as soon as possible and resume full production at the factory,” the company wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Tesla did not respond to Benzinga‘s request for a clearer timeline as of the time of publishing this report.
Arson Attack: The German factory suffered a power outage and was forced to halt production on Tuesday following an arson attack nearby. A far-left activist organization named the Volcano Group has claimed responsibility for the incident in which no one was injured.
“We sabotaged Tesla today. Because Tesla in Grünau eats up earth, resources, people, labor and spits out 6,000 SUVs, killing machines and monster trucks per week. Our gift for March 8th is to shut down Tesla,” the group said in a statement posted on the website kontrapolis.info. “Tesla is a symbol of "green capitalism" and a totalitarian technological attack on society,” it added.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk also took to X to condemn the act. “These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth or they're puppets of those who don't have good environmental goals. Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm,” he wrote.
Environmental Concerns At Giga Berlin: Tesla’s gigafactory in Berlin is its only factory in Europe. As per the company’s 2023 annual report, the factory currently has an installed annual vehicle capacity of 375,000 Model Y vehicles.
The company is currently looking to expand the plant to double its capacity for battery production to 100-gigawatt hours and car production to 1 million units annually. However, in February, local citizens near the plant voted against the company's plans to clear trees to make way for the expansion.
At the end of last month, it was also reported that a local water authority accused the EV giant of polluting Berlin’s drinking water and demanded Tesla shut down its wastewater line until further notice.
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