Tesla has agreed to pay a $275,000 fine in a settlement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for violating the federal Clean Air Act at its electric vehicle manufacturing plant in Fremont, California.
The penalty is next to nothing for a company that generated a net income of $2.32 billion in the fourth quarter of last year alone.
The EPA found Tesla to be in violation of specific regulations known as National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Surface Coating of Automobiles and Light-Duty Trucks from October 2016 through September 2019, which could put people living in communities nearby at a health and environmental risk. Tesla’s facility applied coating materials containing such hazardous air pollutants as formaldehyde, ethylbenzene, naphthalene and xylene.
Based on several requests for information from Tesla, the EPA determined that Tesla either didn’t devel …
