Environmentalists Try to Storm Tesla's Euopean Gigafactory

Production at Tesla’s Berlin vehicle plant is again under threat as hundreds of environmentalists attempt to storm the facility.

Protestesters clashed with police at the site in Grünheide near the Germany capital resulting in several being injured, including three police officers, reports the BBC. Campaigners have been camped out in woods around the factory since February, in an attempt to prevent the facility expanding with the destruction of much of the surrounding woodland.

A social media video, verified by the BBC, shows protesters breaking through the police cordon and entering the grounds of the factory. They are seen heading towards an outlying building at the northeast corner of the Gigafactory grounds.

Police confirmed that protesters who tried to enter the facility were prevented from doing so, with several people taken into custody. Tesla closed the plant for the day during the protests organized by a group called ‘Disrupt Tesla’ group had been calling for mass protests against the doubling of the site’s footprint that had been scheduled to start last week.

Some activists have occupied part of the forest expected to be cleared for the expanded factory for months, building tree houses and erecting signs in opposition.

Production had to be briefly halted in March after a power outage was triggered by a suspected arson attack.