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Currently without power: The Tesla factory in Grünheide

Photo: Odd Andersen / AFP

According to the responsible electricity supplier, the Tesla factory in Grünheide near Berlin could be reconnected to the power grid on Monday.

There is a chance that the power supply to the factory and the associated logistics center could be resumed in the evening hours, said the network operator E.dis, which belongs to E.on.

The decisive factor is the result of the high-voltage measurement and thus the approval of the test engineers.

The exam is scheduled for later in the day.

Originally the repair date was expected to be at the end of the week.

A Tesla spokeswoman said the company saw the possibility that the factory could be connected to the power grid again in the evening.

The factory's systems would then be gradually started up.

“It is not yet possible to say how long it will take until production can fully resume.”

A fire on a high-voltage pylon near the Tesla factory in Brandenburg interrupted the power supply to the factory and numerous households last Tuesday.

In a letter on the Internet, the organization “Turn off Tesla Volcano Group!”, which was classified as left-wing extremist by the Brandenburg Office for the Protection of the Constitution, claimed responsibility for the crime.

The police classified the letter of confession as authentic.

The US electric car manufacturer's factory has been idle since then, and plant manager Andre Thierig estimated the damage at a high nine-figure amount.

The company normally produces more than 1,000 vehicles per day, which is how high the daily downtime is.

Protests for and against Tesla

Tesla plans to expand its factory by 170 hectares and build a freight yard, warehouses and a company kindergarten.

To achieve this, around 100 hectares of forest would have to be cleared.

Around 80 environmental activists occupied the forest a week and a half ago and set up a protest camp with tree houses to prevent this.

The attack is seen in the context of the protests against expansion.

On Sunday, several hundred people protested against the expansion of the Tesla site;

According to RBB estimates there were around 800. Participant Annika Fuchs from the environmental organization Robin Wood said that the results of the citizen survey on the expansion had to be taken into account.

In February, the majority of residents in the community of Grünheide spoke out against it in the citizen survey.

However, the vote is not binding for the community.

At the same time, there was a demonstration for Tesla on Sunday; according to RBB, around 200 people took part.

Brandenburg's Economics Minister Jörg Steinbach spoke about "demonstration tourism" on Monday in the RBB with a view to the anti-Tesla rally.

A “very large part” of the demonstrators against Tesla “left again” on Sunday evening.

The factory site in Grünheide currently covers around 300 hectares.

Around 12,000 people work for Tesla there.

mamk/Reuters/AFP