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.
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.
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
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.
How is sticking a sticker on your car dragging other people into something?