Tesla’s Fremont Plant Accused of Emitting Tons of Illegal Air Pollutants, Sued by Grassroot Organization

Image C/O Noah Berger / Associated Press

By Andrew Martinez Cabrera
Associate Editor

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On May 2, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) requested an abatement order against Tesla’s Fremont Plant from their agency’s independent Hearing Board. The abatement order would force Tesla to “stop frequent and ongoing violations from the paint shop operations at the [Fremont] facility.” 

According to their press statement, the Fremont site already possesses 112 Notices of Violation since 2019, without proper abatement. The facility is estimated to roughly emit “as much as 750 pounds of illegal air pollution” per one notice, noting that “[these] violations are frequent, recurring and can negatively affect public health and the environment.”

The BAAQMD says that Tesla’s thermal oxidizer, a combustion device that destroys/converts hazardous air pollutants into CO2 and H20 before emitting them into the atmosphere, or similar abatement systems break down repeatedly. As a result, “emissions are automatically vented directly into the atmosphere without proper abatement.” Other times, Tesla would shut down these systems whenever equipment problems arose in the paint shops.

According to the BAAQMD, these problems are easy to address and avoidable. In response, the Bay Area agency has requested that Tesla hire a third-party consultant who would evaluate and suggest recommendations that Tesla would then be required to adopt. The Hearing Board will have to approve their plan before Tesla fully implements its recommendations as a form of checks and balances. 

Independently of BAAQMD’s accusation, the nonprofit group Environmental Democracy Project, based in Oakland, filed a citizen lawsuit against Tesla for emissions. The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California on May 13, about two weeks after the agency’s complaint. The suit alleges that Tesla’s Fremont facility has violated the Clean Air Act. Some of the reasons mentioned above in the BAAQMD are repeated in the lawsuit, with an emphasis on worker/resident exposure to deadly chemicals from Tesla’s plant. 

Attached in the lawsuit is a March 4 notice from the EDP towards Tesla, Tesla Fremont’s self-reported list of violations of the Clean Air Act from January 2021-2022 with dates and descriptions, and BAAQMD’s 163 notices of violations from January 2021 to January 2024. The EDP hopes to “put an end to Tesla’s Clean Air Act violations at the Fremont Factory and penalize Tesla for its unlawful conduct, thereby deterring future noncompliance.”

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