Construction at electric car-maker Tesla’s "gigafactory" outside Berlin has been allowed to proceed with restrictions after conservation groups twice obtained court injunctions against forest clearing.
On Friday, 18 December, the Berlin-Brandenburg Higher Administrative Court upheld a ban on Tesla clearing extra, peripheral areas of the site, first gained through an emergency appeal by environmental groups who feared for the lives of hibernating snakes and lizards, reports newspaper Deutsche Welle.
But the court decided that a stoppage in the rest of the area in Grünheide, south of Berlin, was unjustified.
Tesla plans to make some 500,000 cars a year there and hire around 10,000 workers, said Deutsche Welle, with operations scheduled to start in July 2021.
Image: Aerial view in October 2020 of the Tesla gigafactory under construction at Grünheide, south of Berlin (Michael Wolf, Penig/CC BY-SA 3.0)
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