It feels almost unbelievable when you realize how many different forces work in conjunction to make our living experience purposeful. The whole thing becomes even more ridiculous once you get to know that these forces are also, at times, quite contrasting in nature. While such a setup is integral to the process of widening our horizons, it does carry certain drawbacks on its back. For starters, we must acknowledge that not all collaborations between the said forces yield a positive impact. In fact, we have enough examples to educate us about the negative ripple effects as well, and some of them have appeared on a much bigger scale than anyone ever expected. Hence, as you can guess, our natural reaction here was to protect ourselves against potentially negative ramifications. We would achieve it via the route of dedicated regulation. By establishing a tightly-knit regulatory framework, the world was able to significantly neutralize its inconsistencies. Nevertheless, there were also some big failures along the way. You see, getting everyone to follow a uniform set of rules was never going to be easy, and as if the situation didn’t look challenging enough, regulatory bodies soon had to deal with technology, which offered people an easy escape off the governmental radar. This has now prompted the regulators to rework their approach, and apparently, we are already witnessing the benefits of a new environment.
According to Reuters, Securities and Exchange Commission of U.S. has opened an investigation into tech giant, Tesla for failing to inform all customers and shareholders about its faulty solar panel systems. The whole solar panel runner started when Tesla’s former field quality manager, Steven Henkes, filed a whistleblower complaint in 2019, which talked to how his employer at the time wittingly concealed information about these solar panels being prone to fire risks. Instead of making the customers aware, Tesla allegedly told them that it was a mere maintenance issue.
The controversy really caught momentum when retail giant, Walmart also sued Tesla on the basis of its solar panels casing fire incidents in many Walmart stores. Now, some defective panels were installed by SolarCity, but when Tesla acquired the company, the issues were expected to be resolved. Unfortunately, they weren’t. Walmart dropped the lawsuit eventually. Since then, the issue has remained somewhat untouched. Hence, with SEC finally going on the offense, it will be interesting to see how Tesla responds to the investigation.