Police in Massachusetts are looking for whoever torched seven Tesla charging stations at a suburban shopping center in the Boston suburb of Littleton.
Officers responded to a call at 1:10 a.m. Monday in the 10,000-population town about 35 miles from Boston, to find a row of Tesla stations “engulfed in flames and heavy, dark smoke,” Chief Matthew Pinard said in a media release.
The fires appeared to be “suspicious in nature,” Pinard said, a theory borne out later by arson investigators.
Before firefighters could douse the flames, the Littleton Electric Light & Water Department had to be summoned to cut the electricity. In the intervening time, another charging station caught on fire, bringing the total to seven that “sustained heavy fire-related damage,” police said.
“The electricity is one of our bigger issues that we’re dealing with in making sure that not only the public, but the firefighters are safe,” Littleton Fire Chief Steele McCurdy told WBZ-TV. “So we kept our distance from the charged electrical equipment.”
No one was injured, authorities said, asking anyone with information or suspicious observations to call the Arson Watch Reward Program Hotline. The arson designation makes the incident eligible for a $5,000 reward “for information that solves, prevents, or detects arson crimes,” investigators said.
Several businesses are located near the charging stations, including a movie theater, restaurants and a grocery store, WCVB-TV noted.
“It’s scary that somebody would come and torch these because it’s hazardous to society, hazardous to the air and dangerous,” Tesla driver Zaheer Kalvert, who charges his cars at the Littleton spot, told WBTS. “It’s really unfortunate.”
The incident was one of several across the country in recent weeks as billionaire Tesla owner Elon Musk slashes essential government agencies. That ranges from an attempt to burn down a Colorado Tesla dealership, to a vandalized Cybertruck in California in January. Protests are also erupting nationwide, including one in Boston over the weekend.