About 500,000 trees were cut down to build her mega-factory Tesla near Berlin, as revealed by satellite images.

According to environmental intelligence company Kayrros, which analyzed the images, 813 acres of forest were cut between March 2020 and May 2023 at the site where the factory was built.

Antoine Halff, chief analyst at Kayrros, 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 electric cars that Tesla produces and sells every quarter,” he said.

Since May, climate activists have been protesting the planned expansion of Tesla’s facilities in the area, camping in the forest, setting up tree houses.

tesla protesters

In fact, last March, protesters set fire to an electricity pylon and stopped production at the factory for a few days.

Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla, has criticized local police for allowing demonstrations by “left-wing protesters”.

According to Tesla, “Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg is Tesla’s first production site in Europe and the most advanced, sustainable and efficient facility to date, manufacturing hundreds of thousands of Model Y vehicles and millions of battery cells.”