Oh my! The luster on Elon’s crown is flaking off.
https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/austin/article/tesla-environmental-violations-pollution-19943675.php
Tesla Gigafactory reportedly dumped pollutants into Austin water
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed to MySA that it pursued 15 investigations at the electronic automaker’s factory, one related to waste while the rest were air violations.
WSJ’s account of Tesla’s environment problems came from city and state regulators, interviews with former employees and other documents, including a memo sent by a whistleblower to the Environmental Protection Agency. WSJ said the door to the plant’s giant casting furnace, which melts metal for Model Y parts, failed to shut, spewing toxins into the air and raising temperatures for workers on the floor to as high as 100 degrees.
If the leaky furnace wasn’t bad enough, the report also claims that untreated wastewater which contained chemicals waste from paint, oil, and more was discharged directly into city’s sewer system without the proper permits, which is against state guidelines. This went on for months as Tesla prioritized the ramp-up of the Model Y’s production.
Perhaps the most troubling is the account of an environmental-compliance staffer who claims that they were asked to lie multiple times. “Tesla repeatedly asked me to lie to the government so that they could operate without paying for proper environmental controls,” wrote the staffer in a 2024 memo to the EPA.