<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/mar/06/tesla-accuses-fcai-price-rises-vehicle-emissions-plan>
"Tesla has launched a scathing attack on Australia’s main auto industry lobby
group, accusing it of attempting to delay climate action by repeatedly making
“plainly false” claims to the public about an Albanese government clean car
policy.
In a submission to the government about the design of a vehicle efficiency
standard, Tesla sharply criticised the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries
(FCAI), an organisation in which it holds a board seat and is an active member.
The Australian arm of Elon Musk’s electric car company said the lobby group had
been running a “concerted public campaign” against the government plan,
including claiming to multiple media outlets that it could increase the price
of popular utes by up to $13,000 despite knowing this was not how the system
worked.
Tesla said the FCAI was meant to represent the views of all its members, but on
this issue it was “representing only one section of the industry: those
companies who would continue to delay” action on the climate crisis. It said
FCAI’s position was “discordant” with the public commitments of several of its
members, including Ford, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and Mercedes-Benz, which had
all said they would stop selling combustion engine models in leading markets by
2035.
Tesla said the FCAI was instead arguing for a policy regime that does next to
nothing, based on an existing voluntary program that it oversees. While the
lobby group has described its proposal as “ambitious”, Tesla said it had been
openly discussed within FCAI that it would not cut emissions before 2030.
It estimated the FCAI’s preferred approach would lead to a 25% increase in
vehicle emissions between 2024 and 2030. It said it had put this calculation to
the FCAI before writing its submission and asked if it had “missed anything”.
It alleged the FCAI replied: “You are missing the review process.”
Tesla took this to mean the FCAI was aware that the model it was arguing for
would allow emissions to increase, but was suggesting the details could be
changed years down the track.
“The FCAI knew that its targets would actually allow carmakers to increase
emissions because of enormous loopholes that create hundreds of thousands of
electric vehicles that only exist on paper,” Tesla said in its submission.
“Tesla is both a member of the FCAI and represented on its board, so it’s
important that Tesla makes clear its disagreement with the submission made by
the FCAI to this review, and with false claims it has made in the public
discussion of vehicle standards.”
The FCAI’s claims that the price of the most popular petrol and diesel cars
would jump by thousands of dollars under the government’s plan has been adopted
by the federal Coalition, which describes the policy as a “family car and ute
tax”.
A vehicle emissions standard is not a tax. It requires car companies to meet a
per kilometre emissions target averaged across all the new cars it sells in a
new year."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
