I’m ready to defend my Tesla from the mob

Occitanie, France

In France, burning cars is practically a national sport. Almost 1,000 were set on fire on New Year’s Eve, the annual festival of vehicle incineration. Brand specificity has not traditionally concerned the anarchists, but as Elon Musk has emerged as Donald Trump’s favourite apprentice, Teslas have become the target for left-wing mobs. Tesla owners like me are nervous.

At the Tesla centre in Toulouse a dozen cars, worth €700,000 in total, were destroyed

The Tesla centre in Toulouse, where I picked up my own Model Y car in more innocent days, was stormed this month by the previously unheard-of Information Anti- Autoritaire Toulouse et Alentours. A dozen cars, worth a total of €700,000, were destroyed. ‘Today, there is an acceleration of the fascist, patriarchal, ecocidal and colonialist project,’ the group announced online. ‘While the elites throw Nazi salutes, we decided to salute a Tesla dealer in our own way on the night of 2 March 2025, in Plaisance-du-Touch [a suburb of Toulouse]. We set fire to vehicles inside the compound using two petrol cans.’

There have been similar attacks across the western world: the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Northern Ireland. In New York last week, the studio audience at The Daily Show vigorously applauded as host Jordan Klepper played a montage of news reports of vandalised and destroyed Teslas. An ABC News clip showed Teslas and Cybertrucks burning, a CBS News report showed attackers using Molotov cocktails, while an ABC Good Morning America report showed suspects shooting Teslas with guns and burning them in car parks.