Production at the Tesla plant in Germany was short-circuited Tuesday after a power grid arson attack cut power to the plant and the region surrounding it.
A region of about 60,000 people was affected when power was lost due to the fire at a high-voltage power mast, according to The New York Times.
The plant, which employs about 12,500 people, was evacuated after the incident.
Leftists calling themselves the Volcano Group claimed responsibility for the attack in a letter posted online, according to the BBC.
“We sabotaged Tesla,” the letter said, according to Reuters.
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“Tesla consumes earth, resources, people, workers and in return spits out 6,000 SUVs, killer cars and monster trucks each week,” said the letter, which linked the action to International Women’s Day which is celebrated on March 8.
“We are currently unable to say when production can be expected to resume,” Tesla said in a statement to the AFP news agency, the BBC reported.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk fired back on X.
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“These are either the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth, or they’re puppets of those who don’t have good environmental goals,” Musk wrote.
“Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm,” he wrote. Reuters noted that the final words were German for “extremely dumb.”
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 5, 2024
Brandenburg state Interior Minister Michael Stuebgen said, “If the initial findings are confirmed, this will be a perfidious attack on our electricity infrastructure,” Reuters reported.
“That will have consequences. Here, thousands of people were cut off from basic services and put in danger,” he said.
Although power to the region was restored Tuesday afternoon, the plant remained offline.
Tesla stopped production at its plant outside Berlin after someone set fire to a nearby high-voltage pylon, causing a power cut in the wider region, the police said. The suspected arson attack follows turmoil over Tesla’s plans to expand the factory. https://t.co/nlD6Z2YbsX
— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 5, 2024
Officials would not confirm reports that police found a sign reading “ordnance buried here” that led to bomb squads being deployed.
Tesla’s desire to expand the plant has been opposed by local residents, who last week opposed cutting trees to allow for an expansion, the Times reported.
Tesla’s German plant has the capacity to make 500,000 vehicles per year, but Tesla wants to double that.
