FREMONT — Tesla will pay $275,000 for breaking federal air quality laws at its Fremont manufacturing facility over a three-year period, marking the third time since April 2019 that Tesla has run afoul of environmental or air quality regulations.
The electric carmaker — which posted a profit of more than $2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021 — agreed to pay the penalty in a February settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the company’s violations of Clean Air Act regulations.
Tesla violated regulations known as the “National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Surface Coating of Automobiles and Light-Duty Trucks,” according to an EPA statement about the settlement.
The violations took place from about October 2016 through September 2019.
Tesla failed to put in place a plan to “minimize hazardous air pollutants emissions” from the Fremont factory caused by the materials it uses to coat the vehicles made there, according to the settlement document and a statement from the federal agency.
The company, which employs about 10,000 workers at the Fremont factory located at 45500 Fremont Blvd., also failed to properly calculate its monthly emissions totals for those hazardous materials. Those totals are required to show that the factory is complying with federal clean air standards, the agency said.
Tesla also did not “collect and keep all required records” tied to the factory’s emission rates of hazardous air pollutants from car coating operations, according to the EPA.
The laws Tesla broke are meant to protect people around the nation from hazardous air pollutants that are “known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects,” including the coating materials used at Tesla’s factory, which contain formaldehyde, ethylbenzene, naphthalene, and xylene, the EPA said.
The Fremont factory employs more than 10,000 people, according to the Tesla website. It’s located immediately next to new major housing developments in the city’s “Innovation District,” including hundreds of low-income and market-rate apartments, and townhouses that are selling for more than $1 million.
The recently opened Lila Bringhurst Elementary School is just a three-minute walk from the factory property limits.
“People living in communities that are near sources of hazardous air pollutants may face significant risks to their health and environment,” the EPA said.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time Tesla has been penalized by the EPA for breaking federal hazardous materials rules.
In 2019, the company agreed to a settlement with the EPA to pay a $31,000 penalty over hazardous waste violations at the Fremont factory. Tesla also was required to buy at least $55,000 worth of emergency response equipment for the Fremont Fire Department to “improve the department’s ability to respond to hazardous materials incidents.”
In May 2021, Tesla was fined $750,000 and required to install a solar roof and battery project in a community with poor air quality as part of a settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for committing 33 air quality violations since 2015.
The violations in that settlement included exceeding emission limits, installing or modifying equipment without proper permits, failing to conduct required emissions testing, failing to maintain records, and failing to report required air quality information to the district in a timely manner, officials said at the time.
In both the EPA settlements and the Bay Area air quality district settlement, Tesla has since corrected the violations, the agencies said.
