Tesla has sued local authorities in California in a dispute over plans to reopen its Fremont factory – with company boss Elon Musk saying the firm is set to move its headquarters and future manufacturing plants out of the state.
Production has been halted at the electric car maker’s plant since mid-March, when officials in Alameda County issued a ‘stay-at-home’ order to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Tesla initially wanted to keep the plant open, but county officials ruled that car production was a “non-essential business”. The Model 3 and new Model Y are both built at the facility.
California officials are now beginning to ease many of the restrictions put in place, but while several neighbouring counties have lifted restrictions, Alameda County officials have yet to give permission for the plant to reopen. That has prompted Tesla to file a lawsuit against the county in San Francisco Federal Court. In the filing, Tesla called the restrictions a “power grab” by county officials that contravened the California governor’s statement that manufacturers in the state would be allowed to reopen.
In a statement issued on its website, Tesla said that it has informed officials in Alameda County about its restart plans, and working with the county’s public health agency on steps to guarantee the safety of its workers. These include online training, temperature screening, partitioned work zones, rigorous cleaning and the use of personal protective equipment.
Tesla said the restart plan was “the result of months of careful planning” and was modelled after the “comprehensive return to work plan” in its Shanghai Gigafactory in China, which resumed production three months ago following that country’s lockdown.
The firm added: “We will continue to put people back to work in a safe and responsible manner. However, the County’s position left us no choice but to take legal action to ensure that Tesla and its employees can get back to work.”
Following the post, Musk wrote on Twitter: “Frankly, this is the final straw. Tesla will now move its HQ and future programs to Texas/Nevada immediately. If we even retain Fremont manufacturing activity at all, it will be dependen [sic] on how Tesla is treated in the future. Tesla is the last carmaker left in CA.”
Tesla has an existing gigafactory in Nevada, and is understood to have been evaluating opening a plant in Texas in the near-future. Both states have also begun to substantially ease lockdown restrictions to combat the spread of Covid-19 in recent weeks.
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scrap
Musk deserves credit for
Musk deserves credit for bringing Tesla profile and focus, but I think there is now an argument for him to go as his increasingly erratic behaviour is doing them no favours.
He didn't start the company but was an early investor and quickly became chairman. Tesla have achieved a great amount, but the ridiculous Cybertruck seems so off brand to me, and no one outside the company says the Semi is credible.
Peter Cavellini
A semi?
That means something else here in the UK.....lads?!
Peter Cavellini
The UK.
Boris should offer him an empty factory site here, because as things are going down South there's going to be a lot of empty ones!
scotty5
It's a zero out of ten for management skills.
Rather odd that if you want to start your business a.s.a.p. you should start a legal case against someone. Who knows, in two or three years time, the courts might find in favour of him.
And it's also rather odd that whilst the factory is closed, you say you're going to move your HQ to another state. Is that to say you're telling your current workforce they're sacked?
The bloke is a certified nutcase. He's like Trump in that he has no experience of being told what to do and when he is, and knows there's othing he can do about it, throws the toys out the pram.
Of course he never wanted to close the factory in the first place. He wrote backon 19 th March that by end of April there would be few if any new cases of the virus in the US. Well that date has come and gone and the fact is that by the end of April, there were just over 1,000,000 virus cases recorded in the USA ( 1.34m as of today 10th May ).
There's another target missed Elon but you're used to that.
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