Vandals target electric cars

Electric vehicles parked in Auckland have been spray painted in what could be politically motivated protests.

Sebastian Jonsson, of Mt Eden, told the NZ Herald that he woke on March 10 to find spray paint all over his Polestar.

CCTV footage from the previous night shows a man holding spray paint in one hand. He went up to the car’s rear end before tagging its brake lights, number plate and badge.

He walked away before coming back when he sprayed a wing mirror and two windows before a house light deterred him.

Jonsson suspects the vandal mistook the Polestar for a Tesla and was trying to conduct a similar protest to those occurring overseas against chief executive Elon Musk, one of US President Donald Trump’s best-known supporters.

The police confirm they are in the early stages of inquiries into a complaint made regarding an incident in Mt Eden on the night of March 9.

Another similar incident has been shared on social media showing a white Tesla covered in pink paint, reports the Herald. The image, pictured above and apparently taken on Ponsonby Road, shows the headlights, number plate, badge and windscreen targeted with spray paint.

The incidents come after a woman lobbed molotov cocktails at a Tesla dealership in Colorado. Court documents state that over 13 days from January 29, Lucy Grace Nelson made repeated trips to the yard in Loveland.

She spray-painted “Nazi” in black under its entrance sign. Another time, she took four drink bottles filled with petrol, flung them at EVs parked on-site and watched them go up in flames.

Nelson also allegedly used red spray paint to write “F*** Musk” on the dealership’s entrance doors, reports the Herald.

Vandals in Maryland spray-painted “No Musk” onto a Tesla building alongside a swastika-like symbol.

In February, a man brandishing an AR-style semi-automatic weapon fired at a Tesla storefront in Salem, Oregon. A few weeks before that, investigators claim he hit the same dealership by throwing molotov cocktails at Teslas.