About 20 Tesla cars damaged at Belfast dealership

Wing mirrors broken, windows smashed and dents to bodywork perpetrated

Damage to a wing mirror at the Tesla dealership on the Boucher Road in Belfast on Sunday. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA Wire
Damage to a wing mirror at the Tesla dealership on the Boucher Road in Belfast on Sunday. Photograph: Liam McBurney/PA Wire

About 20 vehicles have been damaged at a Tesla dealership in Belfast.

Most of the cars had their wing mirrors broken, while some had their windows smashed and others sustained bodywork dents.

Police received a report on Sunday about the incident at the dealership in the Boucher Road area of south Belfast.

A PSNI statement on Monday morning said: “The damage is believed to have occurred at some point in the last 24 hours.

READ SOME MORE

“Approximately 20 vehicles have been targeted. Most have had their wing mirrors knocked off, while others have also had windows smashed or received dents to the bodywork.

Tesla tells Trump administration it is ‘exposed’ to retaliatory tariffsOpens in new window ]

“Inquiries to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident are ongoing.”

Officers have appealed for any witnesses or anyone with information about the vandalism to come forward.

Meanwhile, hundreds of people protested at Tesla dealerships across the US over the weekend, as a backlash against Elon Musk and the Trump administration continued despite a warning from the attorney general that the government would be “coming after” protesters.

The protests, in cities including Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Boston and New York, have come as Mr Musk has seen his net worth plunge and the sales of Teslas plummet in Europe. In Brooklyn, New York, about 50 people gathered outside a Tesla showroom on Saturday afternoon to loudly make their displeasure clear, the fourth such protest in the last four weeks.

Mr Musk, co-founder and chief executive of the Tesla car electric vehicle company, “leads all product design, engineering and global manufacturing of the company’s electric vehicles, battery products and solar energy products”, according to the company’s website.

He has heightened his public profile in recent months through his closer association with US president Donald Trump and his US Department of Government Efficiency, which has sought to organise mass layoffs of US federal workers and shut off funding to a wide array of initiatives in the US and globally. – Press Association