Tesla was ordered Thursday to pay $1.5 million in fines after undercover investigators found it was illegally dumping hazardous waste into trash containers at its Fremont, California, electric car factory and auto service centers around the state.
District Attorneys for eight Bay Area counties, along with 17 other California DAs, sued Tesla on Tuesday, alleging it was breaking health and safety laws by disposing of oils, cleaners, lead-acid batteries, solvents and electronic waste in trash containers at its service centers, and by treating potentially toxic welding splatter, paint mixing cups and contaminated debris similarly at the Fremont plant.
On Thursday, as part of a settlement between the company and the DAs’ offices, a Stanislaus County Superior Court judge ordered Tesla to pay $1.3 million in penalties and $200,000 to reimburse investigation costs — a tiny fraction of the company’s $97 billion in revenue last year.
How did investigators from the DAs’ offices — first in San Francisco, then in Alameda and six other counties — find the hazardous waste? By snooping through Tesla’s garbage bins, according to a news release from the Monterey County DA’s office.
“The investigation began in 2018 when San Francisco District Attorney investigators conducted undercover inspections of Tesla’s trash containers at its car service centers, which revealed the illegal disposal of numerous used hazardous automotive components,” the news release said.
DAs in the seven other counties “conducted additional inspections at Tesla’s car service centers throughout California and found similar unlawful disposals,” according to the Monterey County DA. “Alameda County District Attorney investigators also conducted waste inspections of trash containers at the Fremont Factory and found Tesla’s unlawful disposal of additional hazardous wastes.”
Tesla did not immediately respond to questions about the dumping, settlement or where the materials ended up.
The lawsuit alleged that Tesla may have “caused the disposal of hazardous waste at a transfer station or landfill that is not permitted to accept hazardous waste.”
According to the Monterey County DA’s news release, Tesla — whose CEO Elon Musk is notoriously defiant of regulation — cooperated with the investigation and “took steps to improve its compliance” with hazardous-waste disposal laws.
“After Tesla was notified of the issues, they began quarantining and screening trash containers for hazardous waste at all of its service centers before trash was brought to the landfill,” the news release said. Under the settlement, Tesla agreed to properly train employees and hire a third party to conduct annual waste audits of its trash containers at 10% percent of its facilities for five years.
“Auditors,” according to the Monterey County DA’s office, “will examine trash containers for hazardous waste.”
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