Several small groups of environmental demonstrators tried this Friday, May 10, to enter the Tesla factory which produces electric cars in Grünheide, near Berlin, but the police pushed them back, the latter said. Activists are protesting against Tesla’s plan to expand its factory established since 2022 in Grünheide, a small town about thirty kilometers southeast of the German capital.
A police spokesperson told AFP of injuries among the ranks of the demonstrators and among the police without being able to quantify them.
The demonstrators come from a collective of environmental protection associations, including Extinction Rebellion, Nabu and Robin des Bois. They began a long weekend of actions on Wednesday, notably establishing a camp not far from the factory. The “Disrupt Tesla” collective claimed to have brought together more than 1,000 people on Friday.
Since February, environmental activists have regularly protested against the Tesla factory expansion project. They call for security of “water supply” and “real climate protection”, protesting against Elon Musk’s “phony capitalist solutions”.
The American billionaire wants to expand the Gruenheide factory by 170 hectares in order to double production, to reach one million electric vehicles per year. This “Gigafactory”, Tesla’s only one in Europe, already occupies around 300 hectares, on which around 12,000 people work. This is where the “Model Y”, Tesla’s flagship SUV for the European market, comes from.
The project has angered environmentalists and residents, who are worried about the surrounding forest and the water table, or an increase in road traffic in the region. A local referendum was opposed by 60%, but was only advisory.
