Tesla ordered to stop felling trees at site of new factory in Germany
Efforts by electric car manufacturer Tesla to raze a large forest in Germany to make way for a planned factory were brought to a sudden halt over the weekend by a court order following a complaint by environmentalists.
Felling machines had begun an operation to clear 92 hectares of mostly pine forest in Gruenheide, outside Berlin, on Thursday, but were ordered to stop late on Saturday to allow an administrative court to examine a complaint by a local environmental group.
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While welcomed by the regional government, Tesla’s plans for a so-called gigafactory in Germany had already been dogged by protests from locals as well as the discovery of unexploded US wartime bombs on site.
Originally earmarked for a BMW factory some 20 years ago that did not materialise, the site has long been left dormant, leaving trees, plants and animals to conquer the habitat.
Environmentalists fear the forest is being destroyed to make way for a factory that will endanger the region’s water supply and overwhelm the infrastructure in rural surroundings.
“We do not want to stop Tesla,” said Heinz-Herwig Mascher, chairman of the environmental group Gruene Liga Brandenburg behind the complaint. “But the company should not be treated any differently from others,” he said.
Tesla, which has not yet commented on the court’s order, plans to have cleared the 300-hectare site of at least 92 hectares of forest by the end of February.
Production at the factory was set to begin from July 2021, with a planned 500,000 vehicles rolling off the factory line every year.
