By Victoria Waldersee
BERLIN (Reuters) – Tesla plans to drill new water sources to supply an expansion of its electric vehicle factory near Berlin, according to local authorities and water associations, the automaker’s latest move to revive the German bureaucracy.
After the plant’s March launch was nearly stymied by opposition from environmental groups over its use of water, Tesla is taking matters into its own hands as it prepares to double the plant’s capacity by Gruenheide, Brandenburg, from 500,000 to over a million cars per year, pending approval from local authorities.
At a city council meeting last week, a Tesla representative said the company would pay for exploratory drilling to update a decades-old public database of groundwater sources, according to the report. mayor of Gruenheide, Arne Christiani, who attended the meeting.
A local Environment Ministry spokesperson said Tesla was in contact with local authorities but no request had yet been filed.
“We have nothing against it,” Christiani told Reuters, while stressing that it was unusual for a private company to carry out such tests on behalf of local authorities.
If the automaker finds new sources of water, it still needs to apply for the license to use them, a local environment ministry spokesman said.
Still, some local politicians and environmental groups fear the move could set a precedent for private companies taking over public data, fearing that Tesla will advocate for priority access to any new water sources it may find.
“We know this company. It does what it wants, and it will do the same with the water it finds,” said Michael Ganschow, head of local environmental organization Gruene Liga.
“Water is a public good, and exploration is a public task…it’s a red line,” the district administrator of neighboring Maerkish-Oderland told local newspaper Tagesspiegel.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The US automaker has won admiration from some and contempt from others for breaking convention in Germany from the start, paying up front to build its plant before all licenses were obtained – a move that does not was not illegal but unusual in the risk-averse German business. countryside.
Still, even if Tesla gets approval for exploratory drilling, several steps remain to be completed, including laying the pipes for new wells at the plant.
“It could take a very long time,” said Joachim Schroeder, representative of Spreenhagen, one of the areas Tesla wants to explore – “unless Tesla takes over, of course, and does it at Tesla’s speed.”
(Reporting by Victoria Waldersee; Editing by Mark Potter)
Comments are closed.