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Work Council Head: Tesla's German gigafactory will reopen next week.
German authorities declared that they thought a letter purporting to be legitimate from the Volcano Group, a far-left organization, claimed responsibility for the fire.
The president of Tesla’s works council announced on Friday that the company will be resuming operations at its German facility near Berlin next week, following a power outage that halted manufacturing.
Since March 5, the Tesla electric vehicle (EV) facility has been shuttered due to an arson investigation into a fire that occurred at a nearby power pylon.
German police stated that they thought a letter claiming responsibility for the fire was real, which came from a far-left organization known as the Volcano Group.
“We plan to reopen the factory the following week,” Michaela Schmitz declared to an assembly of several hundred employees at the Gigafactory, an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing facility.
A banner reading “We won’t be shut down!” was being held by some people. “This attack will go down as a tragic chapter in our history, alongside many other chapters of tremendous achievements. However, that won’t deter us either,” Schmitz remarked.
The incident has put the 12,500 workers at the factory in a state of uncertainty and has prevented the American electric vehicle manufacturer from producing about 6,000 cars each week, with damages estimated to be at least several hundred million euros.
Some neighbors and activists have been criticizing Tesla’s Gruenheide plant for years because they are worried about the project’s potential effects on the environment.
Schmitz did not provide any other information regarding the restart’s possible timeline beyond stating that Tesla staff would soon receive information about it.
“Colleagues have been condemned to sit at home, instead of contributing successfully together to the energy transition,” Schmitz said.
Tesla has already stated that there’s a chance the factory won’t have electricity until the end of the following week.
The German federal prosecution office announced on Friday that it had assumed control of the arson probe and was looking into allegations of “anti-constitutional sabotage” and terrorism.