The Higher Administrative Court of Berlin-Brandenburg has ruled in favour of automakers Tesla allowing them to cut down trees in order to continue building their new factory. The court had initially asked Tesla to halt the work at the site after environmental activists had lodged a complaint asking the court to stop Tesla from cutting down trees across 91 hectares of land for building its next Gigafactory. The factory site is based just outside the capital city of Berlin in the municipality of Grünheide. The court also stated that the decision is final and Tesla will continue with their construction work going forward.
The activists had claimed that the site Tesla has chosen for the construction of Gigafactory is incorrect as cutting down the trees in this area would affect the wildlife and water sources of the municipality of Grünheide. The final ruling came just four days after the court had initially ordered Tesla to halt their work basis the activists’ arguments. Tesla plans to produce over 500,000 cars per year at the proposed Berlin Gigafactory, the fourth Gigafactory after Nevada, New York, and Shanghai. Tesla has promised to plant trees in an area that is three times larger than the plot it is using for constructing the Gigafactory and has also promised to adopt numerous “water-saving measures” to ensure the environmental activists’ concerns are addressed.
Tesla has had a few more positives to be happy about recently, one of them being the improved showing of the company in Consumer Reports’ rankings for 2020. Tesla jumped eight spots from where it was last year to stand as the 11th best automaker brand out of the 33 considered in the list. Consumer Reports also listed the Model-3 Sedan as one of their 10 top-picks for 2020.
