Tesla Gigafactory Near Berlin Saw 500,000 Trees Felled – Report

The construction impact of the Tesla gigafactory near Berlin has been detailed in new research that will be sure to enrage local environmentalists (again).

The Guardian newspaper reported that satellite analysis of the development of the Tesla gigafactory near Berlin resulted in about 500,000 trees being felled.

The construction of the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg in Germany was hugely controversial at the time, and there have been repeated clashes with environmentalists and protesters at the site.

Environmental impact

The Guardian article referenced satellite analysis of the area from environmental intelligence company Kayrros.

The satellite images reportedly show 329 hectares (813 acres) of forest had been cut down at the site between March 2020 and May 2023, according Kayrros. That is equivalent to approximately 500,000 trees.

Kayrros reportedly measures deforestation using optical images from the satellite Sentinel-2, and the images are automatically processed but checked for quality by remote-sensing experts.

Kayrros reportedly said its deforestation detection tool was being developed to help companies comply with EU deforestation regulations, which from the start of 2025 will ban the import of goods linked to forest destruction.

“The Tesla factory in Germany has led to quite a bit of cutting down of trees,” Antoine Halff, the chief analyst at Kayrros was quoted by the Guardian as saying. “Of course, it has to be put in perspective, against the benefit of replacing internal combustion engine cars with electric vehicles.”

Halff reportedly said the lost trees were equivalent to about 13,000 tonnes of CO2, the annual amount emitted by 2,800 average internal combustion engine cars in the US.

“So that’s a fraction of the number of the electric cars that Tesla produces and sells every quarter,” Halff is quoted as saying. “You always have trade-offs, so you need to be aware of what the terms of the trade-off are.”

The Guardian reported that in July, a plan to expand the Tesla plant to double its production to 1 million cars a year, had been approved by Brandenburg state’s environment ministry.

Factory clashes

There have been frequent clashes and even criminal damage, not just during the construction of the facility, but also after the facility was opened.

The German factory was only the third ever Tesla factory, and was opened in March 2022, employing 12,500 people and making 500,000 electric cars a year.

However it faced a number of issues during its construction, including environmental concerns as it overlaps a drinking water protection zone and borders a nature reserve.

Locally there had been a lot of debate about the high usage of groundwater by Tesla in a region that has suffered from drought for several years, as well as dismay over the amount of forest that had been chopped down to make way for the factory itself.

In May 2021 the factory suffered an arson attack by the Vulkan (volcano) group that damaged several power cables. In a letter posted on a radical-left platform, the activists said they had cut the power supply to the Tesla site by setting fire to six high-voltage cables above ground.

Then in January 2024, Tesla had to halt most production at the plant for two weeks, due to parts deliveries delayed by the Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea.

In March 2024 Tesla production at the Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg was halted again for a number of days, after another arson attack.

The Vulkan activist group once again claimed responsibility for that attack, saying the factory consumed both natural resources and labour and was neither ecological or sustainable.

Tesla bosses reportedly said the damages ran into hundreds of millions of euros and had caused production to halt for a number of days.

The electricity outage affected the factory as well as surrounding communities in the state of Brandenburg.

Then in May 2024 up to 800 climate protestors had tried to break into the plant in protest over its expansion plans.

The police claimed they had prevented the protestors from accessing the Gigafactory, but some media reports suggested that perimeter fences had been damaged.

Since that time, climate activists have protested against the planned expansion of the gigafactory, occupying tree houses in a nearby camp and attempting to storm the site.

There has also been dozens of environmental incidents reported at the site – where millions of battery cells are also produced – including leaks or spills of diesel fuel, paint and aluminium.

Tesla has previously admitted there had been several incidents on the factory site during construction and since the start of the operations. It said none caused environmental damage and that if necessary, corrective measures were implemented.