At least 17 Tesla cars were destroyed after a fire broke out at a dealership on the outskirts of Rome on Monday morning, according to Italian fire officials. No one was at the dealership when the fire broke out and no injuries have been reported.

The fire comes after a string of reports across Italy in recent weeks of Tesla vehicles being vandalized and defaced, with anti-Elon Musk and anti-Donald Trump sentiments written with spray paint.

Another car dealership burned down in northern Rome a week ago, destroying 30 cars, including used Teslas.

Also in Rome, several Teslas in the Garbatella neighborhood were defaced, according to police and social media posts.

Tesla dealerships in Milan have also been targeted by environmental groups in recent weeks.

Reports of Tesla vandalism have also surfaced in France and various parts of the United States, including the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast.

  • CeeBee_Eh@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    It’s actually astonishing how fast Tesla went from the most sought-after brand to becoming the most hated brand.

    There are going to be case studies on this for centuries in all kinds of sciences.

    • tigeruppercut@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      It’s vaguely comforting to see that as everything seems like utter madness and history lurching in the wrong direction, it basically took one display of open Nazi support to have most of the world tell elon to fuck off

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      5 days ago

      Today i saw a tesla with a sticker that says: i bought this before we knew elon was crazy.

      Somehow this made me so mad. Don’t drag other people into that just because you found that out this year.

  • Bubbaonthebeach
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    5 days ago

    I think the dealership fires and vandalism are insider jobs. The dealers have unsellable merchandise. An insurance payout is about the best they could hope for.

    • slaneesh_is_right@lemmy.org
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      5 days ago

      Also shitty cars they can’t fix if they break. A burned tesla is a sold tesla where they don’t have to pretend to work on. Now they can build even shittier cars, because they go off in flames anyway.

      • Serpent@feddit.uk
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        5 days ago

        But it would translate into higher premiums going forwards. Doesn’t seem like sustainable business practice.

        • Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          5 days ago

          If they make higher premiums specific for teslas, then those dealerships can just stop working with teslas.

          • ilost7489
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            5 days ago

            Tesla owns their dealerships rather than franchising them. Either way, higher premiums or less Tesla dealers is a win win

    • MushuChupacabra@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Yes.

      This is completely unrelated to panels falling off of their incel-camino model.

      I think those have fireball batteries as well.

  • axh@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    My guess is that Tesla managers decided it’s better to cash out the insurance money instead of storing the (swasti)cars that almost nobody will buy. And you can always blame the anti Musk “terrorists”.

  • Ganbat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 days ago

    Pretty sure I saw a news report lately about Teslas getting burned in a wildfire, and IIRC, the batteries were exploding violently and scattering hazardous waste.

      • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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        6 days ago

        Kinda disrespectful to Matthew Perry to say they’ll meet in the same place, which I assume for Musk is Satan’s unwashed taint.

    • OutlierBlue
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      5 days ago

      But also a lot more difficult and dangerous to get access to the factory and destroy machinery than it is to set a few cars on fire in a parking lot.

      • Fingolfinz@lemmy.world
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        5 days ago

        I agree, I wouldn’t want to do either. But something like this is a lot more petty than they think it may be so it may not be worth doing unless you’re just going to go all out with it