7 Tesla vehicles burned in fire at Tesla store, police suspect arson

Seven or possibly eight Tesla vehicles burned in a fire at a Tesla store in Malmö, Sweden, and the police is investigating the possibility of arson.

Did someone target Tesla?

In the middle of the night, the fire department received reports of a fire at Tesla’s store and service center in Malmö, Sweden.

Local news SVT reported (translated from Swedish):

‘It has burned in seven or eight electric vehicles in different places, on an area of ​​300-400 square meters,’ says Magnus Köhlin, rescue leader at the Rescue Service South, early in the morning.

The firefighters concentrated their efforts on the burning vehicles closer to the building and managed to prevent the fire from spreading to the building.

They eventually managed to extinguish all the fires, but seven or eight Tesla vehicles were completely destroyed by the fire (images via SVT by Mikael Nilsson):

The cause of the fire is officially unknown, but Magnus Köhlin, the rescue leader, said that he has a hard time believing that it wasn’t started by an arsonist.

The police is investigating the incident as possible arson.

It wouldn’t be the first time that Tesla vehicles were targeted by arsonists.

Last year, a Tesla Model X owner in Germany’s car was set on fire, and he believes it was due to “hatred toward Tesla.”

In another incident in Amsterdam in 2018, two Tesla vehicles parked about 100 yards apart were set on fire by arsonists.

The motives behind those incidents are still unknown.

We have previously reported on many instances of hatred toward Tesla taking the form of vandalism in the past, but it rarely becomes as violent as setting cars on fire.

Interestingly, Tesla’s store and service center in Malmö also caught on fire in 2017, but arson wasn’t suspected right away. The fire started inside the shop and a service bay, and several vehicles were reportedly destroyed in the fire.