Mara, a 24-year-old woman, is ill. She has been living in a forest full of mosquitoes near Tesla’s German gigafactory since March. Despite the warm 78 degrees Fahrenheit weather, a cold is spreading through the camp. Sitting on a makeshift bench, she explains that she left Berlin to live among the pine trees, about an hour’s drive outside the city, in an effort to prevent the company from expanding.
This week, Mara will be joined by the notorious German climate group Here And No Further (Ende Gelände) for a five-day protest. In anticipation of hundreds of demonstrators arriving, Tesla has decided to close the factory for four days, instructing employees to work from home, as reported by the German newspaper Handelsblatt.
Even though Tesla workers will be absent, the company employees and local authorities are on high alert for troublemakers. The factory is only separated from the forest by a thin fence, and police cars can be seen patrolling the area. Mara estimates that there are around 50 to 100 people involved in the anti-Tesla movement, but the camp appears quiet during my visit.
Mara, who prefers not to share her last name, explains that the activists have environmental and anti-capitalist reasons for protesting. She believes that Tesla’s goal to produce 1 million electric cars a year in Germany is not in line with climate protection. She sees the 300-hectare Tesla factory as a product of “green capitalism,” where companies try to appear environmentally friendly to encourage consumers to buy more products.
To Mara, Tesla symbolizes the failure of the green transition, making the German gigafactory a target for radical protests. Activists moved into the forest in February to physically block Tesla from clearing more forest land for expansion. A month after the forest camp was set up, unknown saboteurs blew up a nearby power line, causing the factory to shut down for a week.
