An aerial view shows cars parked at the Tesla Fremont Factory in Fremont, California on February 10, 2022.
Josh Edelson | AFP | Getty Images
Tesla has reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after the regulators determined Elon Musk’s electric car and solar business had violated the Clean Air Act at its vehicle assembly plant in Fremont, California.
According to an announcement from the EPA on Tuesday, Tesla will pay a penalty of $275,000 — immaterial to a business that reported $2.3 billion in net income during the fourth quarter of 2021.
The EPA explained that Tesla violated regulations known as the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Surface Coating of Automobiles from October 2016 through September 2019 in Fremont.
As CNBC previously reported, the paint shop at Tesla’s car plant in Fremont had multiple fires during those years. In 2018, employees told CNBC that months before one fire in April that year, filters below the paint booths and exhaust systems, meant to clean and carry air into and out of the building, were visibly coated with paint and clearcoat.
The EPA announcement about the settlement on Tuesday says that Tesla failed to “develop and/or implement a work practice plan to minimize hazardous air pollutants emissions from the storage and mixing of materials used in vehicle coating operations.”
Tesla, which bills itself as a “sustainable” company also neglected to even measure emissions from its coating operations, and failed to collect and keep legally required records associated with its hazardous air pollutant emission rates, according to the EPA announcement.
