Hyperdrive
Inside Tesla’s Attack on Germany’s Auto Establishment
Carmaking giants once dismissed Tesla as a feeble upstart. Now Elon Musk is building a massive factory in their backyard.
German rangers stand guard to shoo away visitors from a nondescript stretch of forest near Berlin, where a sign nearby warns of “Lebensgefahr” (mortal danger).
The precautions are part of the frantic activity underway to set up Tesla Inc.’s latest assembly plant, Elon Musk’s most daring attack on the German auto establishment. Workers wielding metal detectors have started combing through an area covering some 200 football fields to search for errant ammunition lurking beneath the sandy surface of tiny Gruenheide.