Production at Europe’s only Tesla car factory was shut down after a power cut and the factory was evacuated.
The Tesla Gigafactory in Grünheide, near Berlin, was evacuated on Tuesday after a major power outage.
Environmental activists who protested the factory expansion last week said they planned to occupy the nearby forest for a week. The facility is the only factory run by billionaire Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company in Europe.
What we know so far
Police initially said they were “investigating in all directions” into the possible cause, but that an electricity pole caught fire. There are also outages in the Berlin districts of Müggelheim, Rahnsdorf and parts of Neukölln, as reported by operator Stromnetz Berlin. 2,000 families are affected on the Berlin side.
Tesla said all measures have been taken to protect production facilities, but that after consultation with electricity supplier EDIS, the company does not expect production to restart quickly.
The fire department was called at around 5:15 am (04:15 GMT/UTC) and began to extinguish the fire. A police helicopter was deployed after the alarm was raised.…Read more by Lori
