Tesla Inc. boss Elon Musk laughed off a reporter’s question about whether the carmaker’s factory under construction in Germany will deplete the area’s water supply.

“This region has so much water -- look around you,” Musk said Friday, breaking out in laughter during his visit of the site near Berlin. “No, no, this is completely wrong. It’s like water everywhere here. Does this seem like a desert to you? It’s ridiculous. It rains a lot.”

Water supplies are among the issues environmentalists have raised in objecting to the car and battery plant that has fallen months behind schedule. Tesla started cutting down trees to clear a space equivalent to 100 soccer fields early last year and is constructing the facility on top of the water table in the small town of Gruenheide.

Tesla released an annual impact report earlier this week in which it flagged concerns water is becoming increasingly scarce due to climate change. The company claimed it withdraws less of the resource per vehicle produced than the majority of established carmakers at facilities dedicated to vehicle manufacturing.

“The efficient manufacturing design we are implementing at our new factories in Texas and Berlin-Brandenburg will result in further reductions in our water usage per vehicle,” the company said. “Our goal is to have industry-leading low water usage per vehicle, even when accounting for cell manufacturing.”