German Court Clears Tesla To Cut Trees And Start Construction For Factory


02/21/2020



The legal hurdle to the efforts of the United States based electric car making company Tesla to build an electric-car factory in Germany was overcome by it recently.
 
A permission to the company to restart cutting down trees at a forest site in the small town of Gruenheide where the company has planned to build an assembly factory for electric cars – the forts for it in Europe, was given in a ruling by a Berlin-Brandenburg court on Thursday. this court ruling has now cleared the way for the company to start construction for the factory before the start of the crucial breeding period for local wildlife in March.
 
No laws were violated by the local authorities while they had granted permission to Tesla to start construction of the factory, the court concluded as it rejected a complaint filed by Gruene Liga Brandenburg, which is an environmental group, that has been arguing that local regulations had been violated by Tesla and the local authorities so that the company to quickly start building the factory.
 
This court ruling also now allows Tesla to fulfill its ambitious target to complete the construction of the assembly plant in Germany and start production by the middle of next year. Tesla has set itself an ultimate target of manufacturing about 500,000 cars a year in the factory while also giving employment to about 12,000 people. This plant is also believed to turn in to a major competition for German car makers such as Volkswagen AG, Daimler AG and BMW AG.
 
Recently, concerns of the local residents about the huge amount of water that would be used by the plant – which is very close to a nature reserve, were attempted to be to be eased by Elon Musk, Tesla’s chief executive officer.
 
If the forest was not cleared by the middle of March, there would be a delay of construction of the factory by six months, local officials had warned earlier. Already, about two thirds of the trees that had been planned to be cut down by Tesla for the factory have already come down and the company said that the rest would be felled within the previously announced scheduled. 
 
Tesla is to cut down trees in an area equivalent to 100 soccer fields, and the company was given a preliminary green light to start cutting down of threes by Brandenburg’s environment ministry earlier this month. However the project requires a final approval. An injunction on the cutting down of trees was passed by the court on February 15. A few days later, the court ruled that Tesla and the local authorities had met all the legal requirements for allowing early construction for the project.
 
The region’s water supply could be threatened and the local transport infrastructure could be overburdened by the Tesla factory, Gruene Liga has warned. Preliminary permission to cut down trees should not have been given to Tesla by the local authorities until after March 5, the deadline that has been set for comments on the project to be made by environmental groups, the group has also argued.
 
The argument supporting its decision to allow for the cutting down of trees, as given by the local authorities, was that the trees on plot where this is happening are mainly inferior pine forest that had been planted in the first place to be harvested
 
(Source:www.livemint.com)