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Inside the Climate Protests Hell-Bent on Stopping Tesla

Tesla has temporarily shuttered its doors as climate activists camped in the forest outside Tesla's gigafactory are ramping up their protests over the company's impact on the environment.

Anticipating the arrival of hundreds of demonstrators, Tesla said it would shut the factory for four days, telling its employees to work from home, according to an internal email obtained by the German newspaper Handelsblatt. The problems, they claim, are basically the same: the billionaires who believe they’re above the rules, the environmentally destructive mining required for electric car batteries, the industry’s disruption of communities in the global south, and unsafe working conditions. In 2019, the US Environmental Protection Agency fined Tesla for hazardous waste violations at its California plant, prompting the carmaker to give hazardous-waste training to over 1,100 people working in its paint shop.

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