According to a satellite analysis, around 500,000 trees were felled to build a Tesla gigafactory near Berlin.

The construction of the German factory was highly controversial and sparked significant protests. It also triggered a debate about the trade-offs involved in developing a green economy.

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

Satellite images show that 329 hectares of forest were cut down at this location between March 2020 and May 2023, according to environmental information company Kayrros. That corresponds to about 500,000 trees.

Since May, climate activists have been protesting against the planned expansion of the Gigafactory, occupying tree houses in a nearby camp and attempting to storm the site. In March, a group set fire to a power pole and brought the factory’s production to a standstill for several days.

Karolina Drzewo from the campaign alliance “Tesla turns off the tap” said the analysis showed that the company’s production of electric vehicles had caused both local destruction of nature and global damage through the mining of metals. “In one of the driest regions in Germany, too much of the environment has already been destroyed,” she said. “An expansion and thus even more destruction of forests and endangerment of the drinking water protection area must be prevented.”

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment.

Antoine Halff, chief analyst at Kayrros, said: “The Tesla factory in Germany has resulted in quite a lot of trees being felled. Of course, you have to put that into perspective when you consider the benefits of replacing combustion engine cars with electric vehicles.”

Halff said the loss of trees would be equivalent to about 13,000 tons of CO₂the annual amount emitted by an average of 2,800 internal combustion engine cars in the U.S. “So that’s a fraction of the number of electric cars Tesla produces and sells each quarter,” he said. “There are always trade-offs, so you have to be aware of the terms of that trade-off.”

In July, Brandenburg’s Environment Ministry approved a plan to expand Tesla’s factory with the aim of doubling production to one million cars per year.

Dozens of environmental incidents have been reported at the site, which also produces millions of battery cells, including leaks or spills of diesel fuel, paint and aluminum.

Tesla did not respond at the time, but later said there had been several incidents at the factory site during construction and since operations began. It said none had caused environmental damage and corrective measures had been taken where necessary.

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

Kayrros said its deforestation detection tool is being developed to help companies comply with EU deforestation rules, which will ban the import of goods linked to forest destruction from early 2025. The tool could also be used to independently monitor forests used as carbon offsets on the voluntary carbon market, the company said.