Environmental group asks for Tesla Giga Berlin’s operating license to be revoked after paint leak

The Green League, an environmental group, has launched an effort to revoke Tesla’s operating license for Gigafactory Berlin after learning of a significant paint leak.

Part of the reason why it took so long for Tesla to obtain its operating license at Gigafactory Berlin was environmental groups, including The Green League, petitioning the courts to stop the project for a myriad of reasons from deforestation to water control.

It didn’t work because Tesla finally managed to obtain its operating license during the first week of March.

But the environmental groups are not giving up even though the factory is now in production.

The Green League applied with the authorities of the district of Oder-Spree to have the license revoked after they learned of an incident involving a paint leak at Gigafactory Berlin.

RBB24 reported on the incident (translated from German):

According to the State Environment Agency and the lower Oder-Spree water authority, 15,000 liters of a paint mixture leaked out in the Tesla paint shop on April 11, which was pumped out by a disposal company. A day later, when loading, two to three liters ran onto the access road and were bound. The liquid is considered slightly hazardous to water.

A state report does claim that the paint did not get into the sewage system or groundwater.

Nonetheless, The Green League is asking for the license to be revoked until Tesla paves some unpaved areas around the paint shop to help prevent hazardous materials from entering the aquifer.

The group claims that if the district doesn’t act on its request, it will ask the Ministry of the Environment to intervene.

Tesla Gigafactory Berlin is currently producing Model Y vehicles for the European market.

A report last month claimed that Tesla was producing about 350 Model Ys per week at the plant and pushing to get to 1,000 units per week by the end of the month.

A source familiar with the matter told Electrek that the paint shop is actually the main bottleneck in Tesla’s production at Gigafactory Berlin at the moment.