Environmentalists who oppose Tesla's expansion of a large car plant in Gruenheide, near Berlin, Germany, are believed to be behind the suspected sabotage of the Tesla factory and the power outage in parts of the German capital on Tuesday.
The plant, which produces about 500,000 electric cars a year, was originally planned to expand, but last month local residents voted against it in a non-binding referendum, largely because 100 hectares of forest would be lost.
Tesla wants to double the capacity of its Greenhead plant to 100 gigawatt hours of battery production and produce 1 million electric vehicles per year, hoping to become the most dominant force in the European electric vehicle market.
But some local organizations oppose these plans.
Reuters said Tuesday's fire was learned from suspected saboteurs, which caused the plant to temporarily shut down.
The German tabloid "BZ" added that the fire broke out in the Gosen-New Zittau area, a few kilometers southeast of Berlin, surrounded a substation, and the bomb disposal team rushed to the scene together with firefighters.
Late Tuesday, a letter purporting itself from the Volcano Group was posted online saying the sabotage was carried out to highlight the company's alleged overuse of resources and labor, as well as allegedly contaminating drinking water.
*The authenticity of the letter cannot be immediately determined.
The BBC quoted Michael Stüebgen, the Minister of the Interior of the German state of Brandenburg, as saying: "The rule of law will respond most harshly to such sabotage."
The Associated Press said Tesla has been working on its options after losing a non-binding referendum last month, but still wants to expand the plant.
The "Berlin Gigafactory" delivered its first vehicles to customers in March 2022, joining Tesla's other two major factories in California and Shanghai.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz praised the plant as being "at the forefront of the industry," but the plant, as well as Tesla, has faced growing opposition in recent months, with the latter setting up camp in the forest surrounding the plant, where a piano party was held on Saturday and cakes were distributed to draw attention to their opposition, according to the Associated Press.
Lou Winters, from the campaign organization Tesla den Hahn Abdrehen, told the Associated Press: "Tesla brings a lot of noise and air pollution to the area because trucks are coming through the streets every day.
The friction at the German factory is part of a series of challenges Tesla has recently encountered in Europe;