At the location of the Tesla gigafactory near Berlin, some 500,000 trees were felled.

An examination of satellite images reveals that 329 hectares of woodland were removed in Germany to build a factory.

Satellite data indicates that the construction of a Tesla gigafactory close to Berlin has resulted in the removal of roughly 500,000 trees.

The construction of the German plant has generated a great deal of controversy, large-scale protests, and discussion regarding the trade-offs associated with advancing a green economy.

The owner of Tesla, Elon Musk, has blasted the local police for releasing "leftwing protesters."

The environmental intelligence firm Kayrros claims that 329 hectares (813 acres) of forest were cleared at the location between March 2020 and May 2023 based on satellite imagery. That's almost five hundred thousand trees.

Climate activists have been staging protests against the gigafactory's proposed expansion since May. They have attempted to storm the site and taken over tree huts in a nearby camp. In March, one group burned an electricity pylon, which caused the factory's work to halt for a few days.

Turn Off Tesla's Tap campaign alliance member Karolina Drzewo claimed a research revealed the company's production of electric vehicles had harmed the environment both locally and globally through metal mining. "Too much of the environment has already been destroyed in one of Germany's driest regions," the speaker stated. "It is necessary to prevent an expansion that would result in even more forest destruction and jeopardize the protected drinking water area."

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

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

Halff 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,” he said. “You always have trade-offs, so you need to be aware of what the terms of the trade-off are.”

In July, a plan to expand the Tesla plant to double production to 1m cars a year was approved by Brandenburg state’s environment ministry.

skip past newsletter promotion

Free weekly newsletter

The planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essential

Enter your email address

Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

after newsletter promotion

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

Tesla did not respond at the time but later said 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.

Kayrros measures deforestation using optical images from the satellite Sentinel-2, which have a resolution of 10 metres and are publicly available. This data is automatically processed but checked for quality by remote-sensing experts.

Kayrros 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 tool could also be used to independently monitor forests being used as carbon offsets in the voluntary carbon market, the company said.

This is what we're up against

Bad actors spreading disinformation online to fuel intolerance.

Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see.

Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and other established science.

Authoritarian states with no regard for the freedom of the press.

***

But we have something powerful on our side.

We’ve got you.

This is why we're inviting you to access our brilliant, investigative journalism with exclusive digital extras to unlock:

1. Unlimited articles in our app

2. Ad-free reading on all your devices

3. Exclusive newsletter for supporters, sent every week from the Guardian newsroom

4. Far fewer asks for support

5. Full access to the Guardian Feast app

The Guardian is funded by readers like you in Indonesia and the only person who decides what we publish is our editor.

source: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/article/2024/aug/22/trees-cut-down-site-tesla-gigafactory-germany-deforestation

Tesla Fremont Factory, Fremont, California, United States, Model S, Model X, Model 3, Model Y, 2010, 22,000[4], 5,500,000 sq ft (510,000 m2), Former GM Fremont Assembly and Toyota/GM NUMMI plant.