Power-pylon arson knocks out Tesla Gigafactory Berlin

Early on 05 March 2024, attackers set fire to a high-voltage electricity pylon near Tesla's Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg in Gruenheide, east of Berlin. The blaze cut power to the plant and to several surrounding communities in the Oder-Spree district, leaving thousands of residents without electricity. Tesla evacuated the site and halted all production, sending workers home, while the logistics operations of nearby businesses were also disrupted.

A far-left network calling itself the Vulkangruppe (Volcano Group) claimed responsibility in a lengthy published letter, stating the aim was the largest possible blackout of the Gigafactory. The group framed the arson in anti-industrial and anti-capitalist terms, citing the plant's water use, planned forest clearing, and what it called exploitative production. Police later treated the letter as authentic. The same Tesla site had been targeted by the group in 2021.

Brandenburg's interior minister, Michael Stuebgen, called it a perfidious attack on the electricity infrastructure and said thousands of people had been cut off from their basic supply and put in danger. Grid operator E.DIS carried out days of repairs and reconnected the plant to the network on the evening of 11 March 2024, after which Tesla gradually ramped production back up.

This is domestic German far-left, anti-industrial extremism, not foreign state-sponsored hybrid activity. The Vulkangruppe claim is consistent with the group's stated anti-capitalist, anti-Tesla ideology and its earlier 2021 action against the same site, and police deemed the claim letter authentic. The incident nonetheless illustrates how exposed grid infrastructure is to a single deliberate fire: one pylon attack idled a major factory and cut civilian power for days. Attribution to the group rests on its own claim plus an authenticated letter; the identity of individual perpetrators remained unconfirmed.