Walmart Inc. filed a lawsuit against Tesla Inc. subsidiary Tesla Energy Operations Inc. Tuesday claiming that the company is responsible for fires that started via solar panels at seven locations.

The multimillion-dollar suit accuses Tesla and SolarCity Corp., the solar panel company acquired by Tesla in 2016, of “widespread, systemic negligence” in the installation and maintenance of solar panels on the roofs of several hundred Walmarts.

The accusations don’t stop there. The suit alleges that the solar firm “failed to abide by prudent industry practices” and “routinely deployed individuals to inspect the solar systems who lacked basic solar training and knowledge.” Tesla is accused of “incompetence or callousness, or both” and the lawsuit claiming that safety issues persisted even after Tesla “disconnected” or “de-energized” its solar panels, according to Fast Company.

The first fire allegedly involving Tesla and then SolarCity solar panels was reported at a store in Long Beach, California, in 2012, with two more fires in 2016 and 2017 that were initially dismissed as isolated incidents. Where the dismissal changed was with three fires in 2018 attributed to faulty solar panels. Walmart asked Tesla to deactivate all of the solar panels, which it did, but that didn’t prevent the seventh fire at a store in November in Yuba City, California.

The fires varied in intensity and though no one was injured, they are alleged to have costs millions in damages.

Walmart alleges that Tesla’s own inspections revealed “a total of 157 action items requiring repairs or replacement of system components, 48 of which Tesla itself characterized as reflecting conditions that rendered the sites unsafe or potentially unsafe” and that its own inspectors found even more problems.

Some of the defects identified included hotspots appearing on panels that are said to crack back sheets and damage electrical insulation. It’s also alleged that instead of repairing faulty panels, Tesla employees pasted red tape over the hotspots, blocking sunlight, which created even more hotspots on faulty panels.

To cap off a litany of accusations in a 100 page-long lawsuit, Walmart also claims that Tesla has been recalcitrant in providing compensation for the damage caused by some of the fires as well.

“Despite months of back-and-forth with Walmart, Tesla has yet to pay one cent of the out-of-pocket damages and consulting/inspection fees that Walmart incurred as a result of the fires at Denton, Indio, and Yuba City, as well as consultant and attorneys’ fees related to the Beavercreek fire,” the lawsuit states.

Tesla has not publicly commented on the lawsuit. Shares in Tesla were down $5.03 or 2.2% today following news of the lawsuit.

Photo: Mbudzi/ Wikimedia Commons