Hundreds of environmental activists are set to protest the expansion of US electric carmaker Tesla’s factory outside of Berlin on Sunday, reported German news agency (dpa).
Production at the giant factory was halted on Tuesday after a suspected arson attack on the power supply by a left-wing extremist group. Authorities say electricity could still be days away from being restored.
Protest organisers say they have no connection to the power failure, which also affected thousands of local residents.
Sunday’s rally is to demand that leaders in the small town of Grünheide, located in an area known for its forests and lakes, abide by the results of a non-binding referendum held last month.
Residents were asked to participate in a survey on Tesla’s plans to expand the 300-hectare site in Grünheide by adding a freight depot, warehouses and a company kindergarten on an additional 170 hectares.
Some 5,400 people took part in the survey, with 3,499 voting against and 1,882 voting in favour of the expansion.
About 100 hectares of forest would have to be cleared to make room for the additions to the site. Activists, deploying a tactic frequently seen in Germany, have been camping out in tents and tree-houses in the forest.
Environmentalists also worry about the pressure the factory puts on the local water supply and the risk of contamination. Grünheide sits in the state of Brandenburg, one of Germany’s driest regions.
The umbrella group “Tesla den Hahn Abdrehen”, which translates as “Turn off Tesla’s Tap”, said the protest will start at 2 pm (1300 GMT) at the train station near the plant and end at Grünheide’s town hall. - Bernama, dpa
So tesla has managed to make more than just one enemy.
What a surprise.
I would maybe focus on oil and gas infrastructure if I was an eco terrorist but that’s just me.
This is reporting on a local issue . Unless there are cases where oil and gas are deforesting for new infrastructure in the same area then surely both would be targets.
It’s just more the same small-picture ‘environmentalism’ that lead to Germany shutting down nuclear in favor of more coal and gas. Slowing down the switch from gas to electric cars to save 1% of 1 new growth forest is dumb as hell.
I know Tesla is bad, but is it THAT bad?
What they are doing in Germany is even more than THAT bad.
At least, according to German standards. May be different according to Texas or Mexican standards :-) which don’t really count here.
Yep, if you have risk of contaminating our forest or overuse water where it damage the forest or people, you get bloody nose. People start living in the tree you want to cut down. And removing them from the tree is illegal (look up stuttgart 21, police forcefully removed protestor from treehouse and got sued).
Except if you coal industry, then you get red carpet (look up lützerath).
Environment protection is relative strong (compared to us at least, we still need stronger one to protect ecosystem properly). even have some zone where you cannot drive with car/truck/motorcycle/etc. not tested to certain standard (look up umweltplakette)
Who is “us”?
Elon is a megalomaniacal cunt, but I was wondering why environmentalists of all people would push to limit electric vehicle production. It seems a little brain dead while we’re actively watching the climate warm at a much higher rate than was predicted when I was young.
Anyway, this is about protecting their water.
Environmentalists also worry about the pressure the factory puts on the local water supply and the risk of contamination.
but I was wondering why environmentalists of all people would push to limit electric vehicle production.
Easy: Tesla is not doing this all for the sake of the environment. And what they are doing in Brandenburg amounts to shitting into all the wells and sources of the whole region around that factory. It is not only environmentalists who are pissed.
I find that often “movements” end up focused more on just continuing their movement rather than the underlying purpose of why they started moving in the first place.
In this case it is very valid though. The water supply is in danger, and the locals have held a referendum against the expansion. All they are asking is that this referendum be honored.
I have a few personal reasons why we should be opposed to Tesla, and I’m almost certain that most of my reasons don’t overlap with justifications used by the radical activists.
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Tesla is gatekeeping their battery tech, which is objectively better than existing lithium battery cells. This means that everyone else is consuming more electricity than necessary simply so Tesla can make more profit.
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Lithium is a heavy metal, so when it leeches into the water during mining, recycling, and manufacturing it will cause higher cancer rates and harm the surrounding environment.
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Lithium is a rare earth metal, so our existing economic systems lead to extreme forms of exploitation and oppression in areas with a high amount of the mineral.
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Individual transportation does reduce emissions when it’s entirely electric, but it’s not the whole picture. Car-centric infrastructure is extremely inefficient for transporting people. The amounts of concrete, metal rebar, and plastic that goes into traveling by car will still be necessary if we just switch to EVs.
Lithium is a heavy metal
Wrong. Lithium is one of the very lightest metals.
Lithium is a rare earth metal
Wrong. Lithium isn’t rare at all.
“Rare earth metal”, not “rare metal”. Rare earth metals don’t occur naturally in concentrations comparable to other metals: Noone ever found a lithium nugget, oxidised or not, you have to sift through cube metres of soil to get at a little bit of the material no matter where you get your soil from.
And lithium being light doesn’t mean that you want to have it in your ground water. Do you want to medicate, or overdose, the whole population on the stuff.
Rare-earth element is a specific technical term. Lithium is absolutely not among them.
One of the main sources lithium is extracted from is brines. That is, it’s already in the water and we take it out.
You’re right. I was thinking of cobalt, a different essential element in battery production. However that doesn’t negate the facts on those points.
- What? Tesla doesn’t have their own batteries they buy them from Panasonic.
- Yes, cars are bad and EVs only improve emissions while worsening infrastructure wear.
Panasonic is being encouraged by Tesla to work with them to develop a proprietary lithium battery cell that has significant advantages over the 1865 cell. Not to mention the tech surrounding the cell, like thermal management and bms.
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Well the thing is we need to get away from individual transportation if we transform all ice cars to ev we won’t really solve the problems we are facing…
If we don’t have individual transportation how are we ever going to catch up to those goalposts?
Until we can stop making new cars we need to be able to make more electric cars.
