EU laws forcing an EU car maker to fund their (foreign) competition. Classic foot gun moment as a result of over regulation.
Regulations goal is to reduce CO2 output. If a private company want to achieve that by funding a foreign electric car company to create a reduced total footprint, that’s their choice.
Ultimately the regulation achieves its goal, reducing CO2. That fact it’s done by increasing competition in the automotive industry can only be seen as an extra win.
Maybe that regulation is stupid and it causes the wrong incentives? If you wanted more electric cars, there are plenty of ways of making them more appealing thus creating a market for them. Like improving charging infrastructure.
Putting a gun to the head of one if not the largest manufacturing industry on the continent is pretty stupid way of doing so.
> That fact it’s done by increasing competition in the automotive industry can only be seen as an extra win.
Yeah great, us europeans will all be thrilled by the increased foreign competition and dead local manufacturers who have EU regulation burdens and foreigners who don't.
Additionally have you seen how small Tesla is compared to someone like VW? They’re easily an order of magnitude smaller.
Finally if Tesla are building in the EU then they’re contributing to the EU manufacturing industry, and they’re beholden to EU regulation.
Well shooting yourself in the foot is a pretty bad way to achieve those goals.
> Additionally have you seen how small Tesla is compared to someone like VW? They’re easily an order of magnitude smaller.
A US company benefiting from much looser regulation at home and most of all the insane FED money printing making its way to the stock market and funding them with free money.
> Finally if Tesla are building in the EU then they’re contributing to the EU manufacturing industry, and they’re beholden to EU regulation.
So we can all be factory workers for americans. Great.
You’re going to have to explain why this is shooting ourselves in the foot. I’m still not seeing it.
> A US company benefiting from much looser regulation at home and most of all the insane FED money printing making its way to the stock market and funding them with free money.
I’m not entirely sure I understand what your trying to say. Which regulations are so much looser and can you explain what advantages they provide to Tesla vs an EU company.
> So we can all be factory workers for americans. Great.
EU companies own factories in the US (VW is a notable example), and US companies own factories in the EU. Nothing wrong with that.
No, the goal is not to reduce CO2, it is to eliminate it entirely, and in order to do that one of the things you have to do is convert all auto transportation over to electric cars. But I bet you already knew that.
Maybe instead of picking a technology you should manage to the target you actually want. The target could in theory be reached with Hydrogen cars and perhaps that would be better — shame if they’d regulated for electric.
(Actually I think hydrogen is an absurd transport fuel, and California’s hydrogen power funding a waste. But the principle holds)
California gave hydrogen funding in order to give them a fair shot. No fair declaring after the fact that it was a waste.
Tesla is also subject to EU regulation. The emission regulations concern cars sold in Europe, no matter whether the company selling them is headquartered in Europe or not. It's just that in this case they're more compliant with the regulation than Fiat.
So I guess this isn't so much a footgun moment as a whole series of them.
I wouldn't call it a foot gun moment but it does feel somewhat like a faustian bargain.
In this specific case a small foreign company (and Tesla is tiny compared to the likes of VW) gets a leg up. I don’t think it have much impact of EU automotive industry in the long run.
Check the market cap.
Does it though?
Instead of Fiat reducing their product's CO2 emissions, isn't it actually the case that they've just done some fancy accounting and now say their emissions are lower because the paperwork now says Tesla is part of their fleet?
Tesla were going to make those cars anyway, so really Tesla gain the free money from Fiat, and Fiat keeps making polluting cars, and we all get to suffer the consequences of no actual reduction of CO2 because ultimately nothing has changed apart from some paperwork that follows the letter of the law rather than the spirit?
Doesn't seem that great to me.
It may be that this is a valid trade off to make, but it warrants thought at the very least.
Great. I look forward to my unemployed well being when the largest EU industry collapses.
For the times they are a-changin'
Electric Wrangler/Gladiator with a smaller cross-over version would sell like hot cakes.
What you've got is a superior off-roading machine. With 4 electric motors you can apply torque with extreme precision. Increasing ground clearance is not an issue since you don't need a drive shaft and diffs.
this has been changing fast last year, so everyone around Europe is getting their designs off the shelves and into the dealership
have been saying this for years, they aren't competing with Tesla, they aren't going to work with the same low volumes because their margins are completely different, and they are not falling behind, they are acting on traditional business cases, not being startups.
If someone builds industry in Europe, in European jurisdiction, which achieves something with less CO2 output, even if he is from Papa Guinea or whatever, what is lost here, beside the ego of some backwards thinking people?
Plus it keeps fiat viable while they work on improving their fleet emissions. Nor fiat squanders the opportunity in which it’s a good idea for them to go bust.