- Footage released on X-Friday shows protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.
- The electric car maker stopped production and asked its employees to stay home.
- Protesters were rallying against Elon Musk’s plan to expand the site by clearing local forest areas.
Videos posted Friday on X, formerly Twitter, appear to show protesters clashing with police near a Tesla factory in Germany.
The first of three clips shared by the left-wing newspaper Young world shows activists from the Disrupt initiative marching in Grünheide, about 32 km southeast of Berlin, where the only Tesla gigafactory in Europe is located.
Two other videos published by the media show demonstrators clash with officers in a forest And cross a police barrier on the way to the Tesla site.
Disrupt is an “alliance” of self-proclaimed anti-capitalist groups that oppose a plan to double the production capacity of the Grünheide factory.
He argues that Tesla’s expansion plan would require it to clear local forest areas and could reduce local water supplies.
On its website, Disrupt calls Tesla CEO Elon Musk a “misogynistic Twitter fascist” and says electric cars are “neither sustainable nor green.”
“Producing an electric car creates a huge ecological footprint due to resource consumption and thus further fuels the global climate catastrophe,” Disrupt states on its website.
“Every tree cut down for Tesla is one tree too many, and every liter of water extracted from the ground is wasted,” he adds.
André Thierig, senior director of manufacturing at the Grünheide plant, said in a statement post on On Tuesday, Tesla would halt production on Friday, in response to a report in German newspaper Handelsblatt citing a company email.
“Without the explicit instructions and authority of your manager, access to the site or plant will not be possible,” the email states, according to the outlet.
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