The recent terrorist attack on Tesla Giga Berlin gave the company and the government officials something to think about. While Tesla has expressed commitment to the area, Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he supports further expansion of the Grünheide factory.
Scholz condemned the attack on the Tesla factory in Grünheide in Brandenburg. In an interview with the Märkische Allgemeine newspaper, he said he supported the planned expansion of the manufacturer’s only European factory. The chancellor said he hoped the company would develop in Brandenburg the same way as Ford in Cologne, whose plant has existed there for almost 100 years and where the partnership between the company and the city offers promise for the future. “That’s why I’m in favor of further expansion of [the Tesla] factory,” he said.
In the future, Tesla wants to double its planned production in Grünheide. Currently, the company has a production capacity of approximately 300,000 vehicles per year. Giga Berlin uses only a little of the water it can use under its contract with the WSE water association. According to the study, this amount is only 500,000 cubic meters of the 1.8 million that Tesla has contracted for. Thus, even operating at full capacity with two phases and a production volume of 1 million cars per year, the factory will still have water reserves. This completely dispels the misinformation created by individuals and organizations on the basis of which protests against the company continue.
The Chancellor condemned the attack on Tesla, which took place a few weeks earlier. He called for clarification. “This was an act of terrorism,” Scholz said. “Police and security agencies must do everything possible to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice.” In early March, attackers set fire to a power pole that is part of the power supply to Giga Berlin. The power outage halted car production for nearly a week. The left-wing extremist group, Vulcangroup, said it was responsible for the attack. The investigation is being led by the Federal Prosecutor’s Office.
Scholz called for strengthening the protection of important facilities in the country. “We see that we need to better protect our infrastructure. We are talking, first of all, about cybersecurity,” the chancellor said. “We must take the threat posed by hackers to our security infrastructure very seriously. We have taken initial measures regarding public infrastructure. And we demand that everyone who runs networks and hospitals, ports and transport companies also ensures that they are better protected.”
