Tesla factory in Berlin: Police prevent environmental activists from raiding Tesla factory in Germany

German police said on Friday they had stopped hundreds of protesters from breaking into the Tesla factory near Berlin during protests against the pioneering electric car maker over its environmental footprint.

Crowds of protesters gathered on Friday near the Grunheide factory, Tesla’s only European production base, carrying banners complaining about water consumption at the plant and advocating for public transport instead of private cars.

Activists have been protesting in a forest near the plant since February over concerns about water and plans to cut down trees to make way for an expansion of the plant, which opened in early 2022. In March, an alleged arson attack An electricity tower claimed by a far-left group cut the factory’s power supply for almost a week, interrupting production.

The company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, at the time called the culprits the “dummiest eco-terrorists on Earth” and said anti-Tesla protesters were wrong to stop production of electric vehicles instead of powered ones. by fossil fuels.

During Friday’s protest march at a nearby train station, “hundreds of participants ran into the woods and tried to reach the Tesla site,” police spokesman Mario Heinemann told ntv television. “We avoided it with our strength.”

Images on social media showed black-clad protesters, many wearing medical masks, running across rough terrain toward the factory boundaries, and riot police using pepper spray in an attempt to push them back.

Police said protesters also blocked a nearby highway and rail line, and set off fireworks at an airfield where Tesla stores new cars.

“Companies like Tesla are happy to destroy habitats for their own profit,” said Ole Becker, spokesman for Disrupt Tesla, a group that helped organize the protest. “Instead of SUVs for the few, we should build buses and trains for the many.”