A letter from a left-wing extremist group confessing to Tuesday's suspected attack on the Tesla factory's power supply in suburban Berlin was received by the German state police and judged "authentic," they said on Wednesday.
"We consider the letter to be genuine, authentic," said a spokeswoman for the Brandenburg state police. To date, the police have not referred to the incident as an attack, but say it was arson.
"We are still talking about deliberate arson."
The left-wing Vulkangruppe (Volcano group) said it had sabotaged the Tesla factory on Tuesday. The group accuses Tesla of "extreme conditions of exploitation."
Additional details on the investigation from the state criminal police were not initially provided.
Unknown perpetrators had set fire to an electricity pylon in a field in Gosen-Neu Zittau near the Tesla factory in Grünheide. The Tesla factory was evacuated and production was halted. Tens of thousands of residents in the region also had their power knocked out from the incident.
Elon Musk, the multibillionaire Tesla owner, slammed the suspected attack at the plant, his only one in Europe.
"Stopping production of electric vehicles, rather than fossil fuel vehicles, ist extrem dumm," he wrote on Tuesday on the platform X, which he also owns, using the German for "is extremely stupid."
Tesla expects production to be cancelled for a few more days. The suspected attack has triggered a debate about better protection for sensitive infrastructure in Germany.
