Tesla has one factory in Europe, the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg in Gruenheide, Germany. It usually pumps out the company’s Model Y electric SUVs at a stated capacity of 375,000 per year, with big, controversial expansion plans in the works. But right now it’s producing nothing. An arson attack on a nearby electricity transmission tower Tuesday left the factory without power, halting production.
An entity calling itself the “Vulkangruppe,” or “Volcano Group” sent a letter to the self-described “radical” website Kontrapolis claiming responsibility for the arson. A version of the letter run through Google Translate calls Tesla CEO Elon Musk a “technofascist” who is “following in the prepared brown footsteps of other patriarchal pioneers” like avowed anti-semite Henry Ford, and who “stands for colonialism, land grabbing and an exacerbation of the climate crisis.” (The group pointed to Elon Musk’s past comments that he would “coup whoever we want” in order to access lithium mines needed to produce Tesla car batteries.) German authorities are still investigating the authenticity of the letter, Reuters reports.
Tesla has been pushing to expand the factory — which only just resumed production after Houthi rebel attacks on ships in the Red Sea deprived it of needed parts and prompted a shutdown — to include a rail freight depot. But in order to do so it would have to cut down about 100 acres of forest near a nature preserve. Last month, a non-binding vote from the residents Grünheide rejected the expansion, which environmental groups also said would negatively affect a nearby water protection area. Local government officials are now trying to change the plans to make them more palatable.
Responding to an X post from the controversial media personality Mario Nawfal about the incident, Musk called the Volcano Group “the dumbest eco-terrorists on Earth.”