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Zurich police rescue two-month-old baby from Tesla

A two-month-old baby was trapped in a Tesla car in Zurich for over an hour on Tuesday after he was accidentally locked in the vehicle by his mother.

Published: 21 June 2018 10:52 CEST
Updated: 21 June 2018 12:00 CEST

Zurich police rescue two-month-old baby from Tesla

File photo: Depositphotos

The baby boy was locked in after his mother parked the electric car in an underground garage. She and her friend got out of the vehicle and then closed the front doors.

However, when they tried to remove the sleeping baby from the back seat, they realised all the doors were now locked and the car key was still inside, Zurich police said in a statement.

Read also: Basel police to get customised Tesla patrol cars

Given the car was a Tesla, it should have been possible to open the vehicle with a wireless or mobile internet connection, but as the vehicle was in an underground car park this was not possible.

According to Swiss daily Blick, the woman was also unable to get through to the Tesla support hotline on the phone.

The mother of the child enlisted the help of the building caretaker and the pair spent an hour trying to break into the car using force with the help of everything from a fire extinguisher to a piece of garden furniture, but to no avail.

Eventually the police were called in. Officers then tried to open the car by smashing a window with an emergency hammer but only ended up breaking the hammer.

The broken emergency hammer. Photo: Zurich Police

Finally, they managed to force their way in to the Tesla using a crowbar.

Incredibly, the baby was still asleep having missed the whole drama and failing to wake even when the car’s alarm went off during the break in.

Later on Tuesday, the woman told police the car was equipped with a form of “bulletproof glass” which she had not known about, Swiss media reported.

From lizards to water, eco-bumps snag Tesla's giant Berlin car factory

Tesla's gigafactory outside the doors of Berlin. dpa-Zentralbild | Patrick Pleul

“When I saw on TV that the Tesla factory was going to be built here, I couldn’t believe it,” said Steffen Schorch, driving his trusty German-made car.

The 60-year-old from Erkner village in the Berlin commuter belt has become one of the faces of the fight against the US auto giant’s first European factory, due to open in the Brandenburg region near Berlin in July.

“Tesla needs far too much water, and the region does not have this water,” said the environmental activist, a local representative of the Nabu ecologist campaign group.

Announced in November 2019, Tesla’s gigafactory project was warmly welcomed as an endorsement of the “Made in Germany” quality mark – but was immediately met with opposition from local residents.

Demonstrations, legal action, open letters – residents have done everything in their power to delay the project, supported by powerful
environmental campaign groups Nabu and Gruene Liga.

Tesla was forced to temporarily suspend forest clearing last year after campaigners won an injunction over threats to the habitats of resident lizards and snakes during their winter slumber.

READ MORE: Is Germany’s Volkswagen becoming ‘the new Tesla’ as it ramps up e-vehicle production?

And now they have focused their attention on water consumption – which could reach up to 3.6 million cubic metres a year, or around 30 percent of the region’s available supply, according to the ZDF public broadcaster.

The extra demand could place a huge burden on a region already affected by water shortages and hit by summer droughts for the past three years.

Local residents and environmentalists are also concerned about the impact on the wetlands, an important source of biodiversity in the region.

Tesla Street

“The water situation is bad, and will get worse,” Heiko Baschin, a spokesman for the neighbourhood association IG Freienbrink, told AFP.

Brandenburg’s environment minister Axel Vogel sought to play down the issue, saying in March that “capacity has not been exceeded for now”.

But the authorities admit that “the impact of droughts is significant” and have set up a working group to examine the issue in the long term.

The gigafactory is set to sprawl over 300 hectares – equivalent to approximately 560 football fields – southwest of the German capital.

Tesla is aiming to produce 500,000 electric vehicles a year at the plant, which will also be home to “the largest battery factory in the world”,
according to group boss Elon Musk.

In a little over a year and a half, swathes of coniferous forest have already been cleared to make way for vast concrete rectangles on a red earth base, accessed via the already iconic Tesla Strasse (Tesla Street).

German bureaucracy

The new site still has only provisional construction permits, but Tesla has been authorised by local officials to begin work at its own risk.

Final approval depends on an assessment of the project’s environmental impact – including the issue of water.

In theory, if approval is not granted, Tesla will have to dismantle the entire complex at its own expense.

But “pressure is being exerted (on the regulatory authorities), linked to Tesla’s significant investment”, Gruene Liga’s Michael Greschow told AFP.

In early April, Tesla said it was “irritated” by the slow pace of German bureaucracy, calling for exceptions to the rules for projects that help the environment.

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier agreed in April that his government “had not done enough” to reduce bureaucracy, lauding the gigafactory as a “very important project”.

Despite Germany’s reputation for efficiency, major infrastructure projects are often held up by bureaucracy criticised as excessive by the business community.

Among the most embarrassing examples are Berlin’s new airport which opened last October after an eight-year delay and Stuttgart’s new train station, which has been under construction since 2010.

Brandenburg’s economy minister, Joerg Steinbach, raised the possibility in February that the Tesla factory could be delayed beyond its July planned opening for the same reason.

SEE ALSO: Tesla advertises over 300 jobs for new Gigafactory near Berlin

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