Germany fines Tesla for errors in battery recovery

A 12 million euro fine for Elon Musk's company, which would not have complied with all the administrative obligations related to the recovery of exhausted batteries. Meanwhile, he is preparing an expansion of the gigfactory on the outskirts of Berlin

Elon Musk, owner of Tesla (photo: Getty Images) Tesla stumbles on a 12 million euro fine in Germany, for not having made some public notifications required by local regulations and failing to accurately fulfill its obligations to recover exhausted batteries from customers regarding administrative matters, the company says. This is what emerges from the quarterly financial document presented to the SEC, the stock exchange control authority in the United States, in a paragraph dedicated to legal issues "which concern environmental issues and aggregate civil penalties that could exceed one million dollars", specifies the company.

German legislation requires manufacturers that sell electric cars to recover batteries at the end of their life cycle and to manage them in an environmentally sustainable way. "The issue is primarily about administrative requirements but Tesla has continued to bring back the batteries," assures the company, which has submitted its objections to the authority. Therefore the outcome of the legal procedure is not yet clear, not even as regards the final amount of the sanction.

According to Tesla, the issue will not have a negative material impact on its business, so much so that in Germany it has just asked to be able to expand the construction project of a gigafactory on the outskirts of Berlin. The question sent to the Land of Brandenburg concerns precisely the desire to establish a battery cell production plant for electric vehicles. which the original project did not have. Announced in 2019, Grünheide is Tesla's fourth-largest factory in the world, after those in Fremont (California), Shanghai and Tilburg, the Netherlands. Limited production should start by this year, and then reach volumes of scale by 2022.

Some complications also in the United States: according to the Environmental Protection Agency, Tesla has not correctly demonstrated compliance with the environmental standards for emissions of hazardous pollutants into the air. In particular, the body wants to verify how the "surface coating" is carried out with Tesla vehicle paints. Also in this case the company founded by Elon Musk believes that there will be no negative effects on its business.


Sustainability - 28 Apr

What are libraries of things (one has just opened in Frankfurt)

adsJSCode ("nativeADV1", [[2,1]], "true", "1", "native", "read-more", "1"); Engines - 27 Apr

Husqvarna's first electric motorcycle

adsJSCode ("nativeADV2", [[2,1]], "true", "2", "native", "read -more "," 2 "); Finance - Apr 27th

Bitcoin investment has rewarded Tesla's accounts

Topics

Environment electric mobility Tesla globalData.fldTopic = "Environment, electric mobility, Tesla"

You may also be interested in

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.