The Tesla gigafactory in the state of Brandenburg suffered an electrical blackout this Tuesday caused by a fire originating in an electricity tower that paralyzed its production and forced the evacuation of the entire plant where 12,500 people work.
The sabotage against Elon Musk's company was claimed by a far-left group called Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group) through a letter posted on the internet and sent to the main editorial offices in Germany.
In the letter they claim to be the authors of an “attack on the electricity supply” as a protest against the American car manufacturer.
“Today we have sabotaged Tesla, because Tesla devours land, resources, people and labor and spits out 6,000 SUVs, killer machines and monster trucks a week,” reads the letter, whose authenticity is still being verified by police.
Elon Musk criticized the members of the group.
“Either they are the dumbest ecoterrorists on Earth or they are puppets of those who do not have good environmental objectives.
Stopping the production of electric vehicles, instead of fossil fuel vehicles, is extremely stupid,” he wrote through the social network X.
The authorities assume that the fire on an electrical pole that was free in a field and was not fenced was caused.
Firefighters responded to the fire around 5:15 a.m. and began to extinguish the fire.
At the moment, the criminal police have opened an investigation into an incident that left nearly 60,000 people without electricity and which was described by the President of Brandenburg, Dietmar Woidke, as “a form of terrorism.”
Meanwhile, Brandenburg's Interior Minister, Michael Stübgen, referred to what happened in the early hours of the day as a “perfidious arson attack” if the first conclusions are confirmed.
“Thousands of people were isolated from basic services and were put in danger,” said the conservative politician.
However, the authors of the alleged authorship letter defend themselves against this accusation.
The objective of the sabotage was to cause the “largest possible blackout of the gigafactory,” according to the letter.
And they affirm that they ruled out “endangering our lives and those of others.”
In the letter, in addition to a series of criticisms of the factory for "polluting groundwater and consuming enormous quantities of the already scarce drinking water resource for its products without any scruples," among the reasons cited by the group is also the rejection of “green capitalism”, which they describe as “synonymous with colonialism, land theft and worsening of the climate crisis.”
It is not the first time that the group is suspected of attacking the American manufacturer.
In 2021, he was also accused of causing another fire in the electrical supply of the Tesla plant works.
At that time, they accused Tesla of being neither green, nor ecological, nor social.
Controversial plant
The huge Tesla plant in Grünheide, in the state of Brandeburo, has been controversial since its inception and has strong opposition in the region.
Currently, not far from the factory and the site of the arson, five or six kilometers away – with the River Spree flowing in the middle – between 80 and 100 climate activists from all over Germany have been protesting against the expansion plans since last week. of the company, which seeks to increase its production to one million electric cars per year.
Activists have erected ten tree houses several meters above the ground in a forest owned by the state of Brandenburg.
With posters such as
Water is a human right
or
Clean cars are a dirty lie,
they protest against Tesla and “dirty electric mobility.”
Elon Musk's company wants to expand its current factory by 118 hectares, mainly to build a merchandise warehouse, for which a large part of the forest will be cut down.
These plans were overwhelmingly rejected by Grünheide residents in a recent referendum.
However, local authorities have yet to make a decision.
The activists decided to occupy the forest in an attempt to pressure for the result of the popular consultation to be respected.
Demonstration against Tesla
However, despite its rejection of Tesla, the Grünheide citizens' initiative, which is planning a demonstration this Saturday against Tesla, distanced itself from the arson.
“These are not our methods, we are in favor of peaceful and creative protest.
This sets us back and harms us, also in terms of acceptance,” declared its spokesman Steffen Schorcht.
Since its inception, the fourth gigafactory, Tesla's first production center in Europe, had aroused great opposition.
Despite this, the company managed to build the plant southeast of Berlin, about 40 kilometers from the center of the German capital, in just two years with the help of the Brandenburg government.
In 2022 it began its automobile production.
Today, 12,500 employees manufacture around 300,000 electric cars a year there.
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