Satellite image analysis shows 329 hectares of forest cleared during development of factory in Germany
The development of a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin has resulted in about 500,000 trees being felled, according to satellite analysis.
The building of the German factory has been highly controversial and attracted significant protests, as well as prompting a debate about the trade-offs involved in developing a green economy.
Elon Musk, Tesla’s owner, has criticised local police for letting off “leftwing protesters”.
Satellite images show 329 hectares (813 acres) of forest were cut down at the site between March 2020 and May 2023, according to the environmental intelligence company Kayrros. That is equivalent to approximately 500,000 trees.
I can’t believe this. Why didn’t Tesla just grow it like every other car factory?
EDIT: doing some napkin math for fun, in order to break even on CO2 impact they would need to cut down about 200 million trees to offset the CO2 savings from replacing 1 million petrol cars per year (the planned capacity of the factory).
Obviously not the only environmental consideration but it puts things in perspective a bit hopefully. It’s ok though you can keep hating Elon (I know I will), but this whole angle of talking about cutting down trees doesn’t make much sense to me.