A 250 kg World War 2 bomb was found at the site of Tesla’s planned expansion of Gigafactory Berlin. It will have to be detonated.
Tesla has been trying to expand its Gigafactory Berlin, but it has been facing some opposition.
Earlier this year, the local residents of Grünheide, the municipality where Tesla Gigafactory Berlin is located, have voted against the expansion of the plant, which requires more than 100 hectares of forest to be cleared.
Local officials have given their approval nonetheless.
Activists also occupied the forest to try to stop the expansion from happening. However, the worst has been an actual attack on the grid that resulted in Tesla having to shut down the factory temporarily.
Now, Tesla is facing another issue: a bomb.
In the context of the previous sabotage, a bomb might sound treating, but we are actually talking about an old WWII bomb – nothing malicious.
RBB reports that the authorities have confirmed they found a 250 kg WWII bomb at the site of Tesla’s expansion.
They plan to detonate the bomb this weekend:
The bomb cannot be transported and is expected to be detonated on site between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday, as the Public Order Office and the Brandenburg Interior Ministry confirmed on Thursday. The exact exclusion zone for the detonation is not yet known; a zone of about one kilometer is usually set for similarly large bombs. According to an employee of the Public Order Office, two state roads will be closed on the day of the detonation, but the A10 motorway and the RE1 railway line will remain open.
Tesla will have to temporarily shut down production this weekend as a precaution.
The protesters who are occupying the forest have been notified. Officials said that it’s their responsibility to leave.
There’s currently an ongoing effort to find old ammunition at the expansion site, which is a normal part of the construction process for parts of Europe that were heavily bombarded during the war.
Tesla is looking to expand the plant to support the production of future vehicles at Gigafactory Berlin, which currently only produces Model Y.
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