Tesla has generated some less-than-positive news recently, including selling people cars that seem like they were "assembled by toddlers during recess" and potentially violating customers' privacy rights.
Now, the electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer is at it again. According to a report from KVUE, the company's Texas Gigafactory is upsetting neighbors by keeping stadium-style lights around its parking lot turned on all night long, flooding the entire area with light and making it difficult for people to sleep.
Bizarrely, some of the lights even appear to be pointed away from the parking lot and toward the surrounding neighborhoods.
Before the Gigafactory arrived, "we would just hang out and you could see the stars and watch the sky and everything, and now it's completely changed," one neighbor told KVUE. "You don't even want to sit back here in the evening."
"All the songbirds there were in here, the ducks, the wildlife that was here, it's just gone," another neighbor said.
When Tesla first announced plans to build its factory in Travis County, Texas, CEO Elon Musk promised that the company would make sure the surrounding area remained "an ecological paradise [with] birds in the trees, butterflies, fish in the stream."
So far, Tesla has not responded to any complaints from its neighbors or to requests for comment from KVUE.
The story made its way to the r/Austin subreddit, where Texans and Texas enthusiasts made their feelings on the matter known.
"Those lights are way too bright and need to be removed," wrote one commenter. "Makes traveling on 130 difficult sometimes. I used to live in Hornsby Glen before Elon moved in, but much happier in Cedar Creek now."
"Actually this is horrible," wrote another. "I couldn't imagine living next to that much artificial light. Why is so much light needed? Especially those temporary ones? I wish Texas would become a dark sky state, but that will never happen because it lets businesses do whatever they want."
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