Automotive News Europe — 2024-03-08
Automotive Industry
Germany's federal prosecutors are looking into charges of terrorism and "anti-constitutional sabotage."
Tesla's European plant near Berlin is likely to restart output earlier than expected, after a power outage stopped production.
The Model Y factory has been down since 5 March 2024 after far-left extremists carried out an arson attack on a nearby electricity pylon cut off the plant's power supply.
The power firm in charge of fixing the outage said the factory could be supplied again with electricity on Monday 11 March 2024.
"Thanks to the extraordinarily speedy assembly work and the excellent cooperation between all the companies involved in the construction, there is now a chance that the Giga Factory and the logistics center will be resupplied ahead of schedule in the evening hours of Monday," said network operator E.dis, a division of E.ON.
The outage has cost Tesla around 1,000 cars per day that it cannot produce, with the factory's head saying during the first week of March 2024 that the supply disruption would cause damages in the high triple-digit millions of euros.
Workers defiant
News about the early resumption of power supply came after the head of the factory's employees body said that the plant would restart this second week of March 2024, without mentioning a specific date.
"Alongside many chapters of outstanding achievements, this attack will go down as a dark chapter in our history. But also that will not stop us," the head ot works council, Michaela Schmitz, told a gathering of several hundred workers at the factory on Friday, 8 March 2024.
Some of the workers were holding a banner saying "We won't be shut down!"
"Colleagues have been condemned to sit at home, instead of contributing successfully together to the energy transition," Schmitz added.
Tesla had previously said that the factory might be without electricity until 15 March 2024.
The plant in Gruenheide has been a focus for climate protesters who oppose a planned expansion of the site to double capacity to 1 m cars a year.
Brokerage Baird Equity Research said it expected lower deliveries from Tesla in the first quarter, in part because of the suspected arson attack. It lowered estimates to 421,100 deliveries for the first quarter, compared with Wall Street estimates of 489,000.
Germany's federal prosecutors office said on Friday it had taken over the investigation into the arson attack, looking into charges of terrorism and "anti-constitutional sabotage."
The prosecutors office, whose remit includes terrorism, espionage and international law, said it was acting "on initial suspicion of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism, anti-constitutional sabotage as well as conspiracy to commit arson."
Police said they believed a letter from a far-left organization called the Volcano Group claiming responsibility for the fire was authentic.