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Fiat Chrysler Will Pay Tesla To Dodge Billions In Emissions Fines (theverge.com)
MDMurphy writes: While people have good and bad things to say about Tesla, one consistent thing has been that the cars emit zero emissions when operating. But in Europe, in exchange for cash, Tesla is merging its fleet with that of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA). The amount FCA is paying Tesla is presumably less than they would in fines if they were on their own. With this merging of the fleets, in Europe at least, a Tesla is no more clean than a diesel Fiat. "The Italian-American carmaker is behind on meeting the new standard, and the so-called open pool option available at the EU allows automakers to group their fleets together to meet the targets," reports Bloomberg. "Payments to Tesla, whose electric cars don't produce CO2 emissions, may amount to over 500 million euros, according to Jefferies."
Ars Technica reports on the strict new EU regulations: "From 2020, 95 percent of an automaker's new cars sold in the EU have to meet this target, with the remaining 5 percent falling under the law in 2021. And the penalties for failing are draconian: a $107 'excess emissions premium' per gram of CO2 over the target, for every single car registered in the EU that year. For some OEMs, this has the potential to be ruinous; if FCA's portfolio were the same in 2021 as it was in 2018, the automaker would have to pay some $3.12 billion, out of total net global profits of $4.1 billion."
Ars Technica reports on the strict new EU regulations: "From 2020, 95 percent of an automaker's new cars sold in the EU have to meet this target, with the remaining 5 percent falling under the law in 2021. And the penalties for failing are draconian: a $107 'excess emissions premium' per gram of CO2 over the target, for every single car registered in the EU that year. For some OEMs, this has the potential to be ruinous; if FCA's portfolio were the same in 2021 as it was in 2018, the automaker would have to pay some $3.12 billion, out of total net global profits of $4.1 billion."
So, with Tesla being the only automaker who can realistically deliver cars and charging stations for fleets around the globe needing to meet standards in this way, perhaps it starts to become clear just how incredibly valuable Tesla is becoming...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The pool was setup over a month ago. The timing of the announcement now amounts to a stock pump given the incredibly weak Q1 delivery numbers. It's all speculation at this point how much money these credits will net them, and it's not like they're going to be the only player. Many Chinese companies are going to be selling BEVs starting next year. $1 - $500M, over the course of 3 years, with very little credits needed to be bought this year. At most, FCA may have given Tesla some money immediately as a call, in the tens of millions, but if something like this has happened, where is the 8K that should be filed to show this? At most it may have helped payroll for a week, but does nothing to alleviate Tesla's immediate, existential threats.
If the Fiat is now "cleaner" how can the Tesla not be "dirtier"?
It's actually very simple to demonstrate.
I'll sit in a Tesla, with a hose running from its exhaust right next to my face, and you can do the same with a Fiat.
Then we turn on the cars and see who gets a better mileage.
It is THAT simple and easy!
Or... you know... you might want to learn to distinguish a metaphor from a thing it designates.
Particularly when it is in a form of a trademark which can be applied to a whole range of products, company policies, executives, stocks...
It also helps if you understand the concepts of taxes, regulations, reality, policy, incentives, subsidies... and a couple of others but those should do.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I see little reason why Tesla should be taking accepting anything less than a billion euros. It's in the best interest of the world (and Tesla) if they make Fiat Chrysler really bleed to pay to avoid such a massive fine.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
his is just going to shift a bunch of money around at the top
Yes that is true.
What is also true is a bunch of that money is in fact shifting to Tesla, a company that not that long ago it was claimed was not viable.
Now it's the only company that can fulfill fleet requirements for large numbers of electric cars and infrastructure.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
" So what in the world was accomplished? "
Two things actually:
1) We got to see corporate lobbying in action. They effectively got themselves a loophole that would let them reduce their fines by 70% or whatever.
2) Even so, an electric car company got a big cash infusion paid for by a big polluter; helping increase the competitiveness of Tesla at the expense of Fiat.
It's effectively subsidizing electric car research, development and production, paid for by fiat ... which really means it's paid for by the people who chose to buy chryslers and fiats.
It also seems like this, at least, is precisely the desired outcome.
I think most reasonable people would understand a "viable" business to be one that is able to sustain itself in an undistorted market.
That also describes Tesla now since they are still maintaining sales even though tax credits have mostly evaporated for the cars they sell.
If you compare Tesla's to other cars the price they charge is really reasonable, especially considering what you save in gasoline and some other routine petrol engine related maintenance over time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
It's surreal how bad and stupid political polarization has become, that we could have right wingers shunning and harassing Teslas and Tesla owners to make an anti-Democrat statement. It's not about being anti-science; it's just anti-Democrat, anti-left.
This is an AMERICAN car company that's spearheading this revolution. I happen to think that Elon Musk is annoyingly overrated, but I can't deny that he is basically the embodiment of every single pro-entrepreneur, pro-privatization, American dream cliche. American jobs. American pride. He's the same guy sending our satellites into space now; so why can't someone just drape an American flag over his shoulders and run with it?
I say this through grit teeth... personally, the hero worship of this guy really gets under my skin, sometimes it's even worse than Jobs, but that's just a pet peeve... from the standpoint of ushering in this revolution why aren't they calling Musk the next Henry Ford? It's in America's best interest for him to be leading this charge.
And yes, I said revolution. This SHOULD be a big deal, far exceeding its ecological implications. This really should be the biggest thing to happen to cars since the Model T. If battery technology can significantly improve and/or existing batteries come down in price a lot more, electric cars would offer huge advantages over the vast majority of diesel and gasoline vehicles on the road today. Electric cars should be significantly cheaper to build and maintain: lower operating temps, simple transmission, just fewer moving parts across the board.... I wouldn't be so surprised if in fifty years time we had electric cars capable of going millions of miles without needing a total rebuild.
And Tesla is also leading the charge with the other major automobile revolution--autopilot--which some day is going to lead to safer and much more efficient (i.e. fast) roads Which is a really big deal in a country as sprawling as America.
Also: the less the world relies on oil, the less money and power OPEC has. Aren't there still millions of voters out there who remember the oil crisis in the 70s? Is no one concerned about the prospect of the Salafi government in Saudi Arabia pulling even more money out of the ground? I for one wouldn't shed a tear if the wealth and power of the OPEC countries diminished. A couple years back even ISIS was managing to get their hands on oil money for a while there. Why can't oil independence be spun as a national security issue? So-called "Islamophobia" harnessed for a good cause, you might say.
But no... this would-be pride of American capitalism and security and optimistic futurism is instead just another pawn in the cultural proxy war.
Instead of something positive and bipartisan-y, liberals invariably lead with the negatives: First, by making some lazy and crazy comments implying human extinction (Don't go wildly exaggerating something that ordinary people already have a tough time perceiving! Sure, many species will go extinct, maybe some cities go underwater and we may have to switch crops and maybe worst case we lose a lot of seafood, but we're obviously never going to see mass starvation and human extinction unless something really far-fetched happens, like an extreme version of the clathrate gun effect or some other deadly positive feedback loop that for some reason was never triggered in past epochs.)
Second: the liberals will whine about America's sins and the sins of those running her. I know it's depressing, I know it is, but I really don't give a shit what Trump said. I don't need to see dozens upon dozens of posts trying to single out American carbon emissions as being particularly bad. I don't care if that's true or not; nobody needs to see that shit. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the actual solutions. Nobody wants to hear you whine abou
That's the point: it's meant to be ruinous. Or you clean up your act by improving the emissions output of your vehicles.
I'm getting a feeling that I'm not seeing a true Scotsman here.
Look, almost no market that exists is NOT distorted in some way or another. Trade tariffs? Market distortion. $457 million in federal grants to Boeing? Market distortion. Federal loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance (not including repayments) $50,346,920,000 for General Motors? Market distortion. Any sort of taxation with redistribution of funds? Market distortion.
There do exist some markets that are not distorted, but you'll find them in places like Somalia.
So, what's your point again? You want to live somewhere that there is no government and the free market rules?
Does having a .50 cal mounted on the back of a Toyota pickup count as market distortion? Maybe a totally free market does not exist even in Somalia.
"The best part? I became an ordained minister while not wearing pants." -- CleverNickName
You do know traditional car makers are also making coal powered cars now, right?
You know that not every body lives in China, India or Austalia, right?
( ^- the part of the world that have such a horrible mix of power sources for their electrical networks, that it doesn't make any difference if the car burns fossil fuels locally itself, or if power stations burn fossils centrally to charge the car's battery)
In most of the rest of the world, even countries where part of the electrical grid is still powered by burning fossils (hello USA !), the electrically-powered cars are still offsetting some of the emissions.
And now if you take into account countries which rely more on cold-climate hydro (hello, lots of parts here around in Europe), complement their source with solar and wind (ditto), or even nuclear (still a lot less polluting than coal, despite all its associated drawbacks - hello France), there are lots of countries where electric vehicles are a lot less pollutting.
By some historical chance, these countries also happen to be more densely populated, meaning that even models with less range than Tesla's are actually useful.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
this is just ouragous to me; instead of investing €500m in developing a better engine, they just fool the system.
ofcourse the system allows it, and they should really close this loophole.
if they can't make their engines cleaner, well bad luck, plain and simple.
perhaps they can buy engines from somebody who can actually get their act together to put in their cars, instead of these scandalous tactics. this is nothing new and is done all the time, it can't be more expensive then paying the fines (or €500m).
On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.
"Does having a .50 cal mounted on the back of a Toyota pickup count as market distortion? "
The poor and rich alike may mount a .50 cal on the back of their Toyota pickups.
Trade tariffs? Market distortion. $457 million in federal grants to Boeing? Market distortion. Federal loans, loan guarantees and bailout assistance (not including repayments) $50,346,920,000 for General Motors? Market distortion.
And people around here regularly bitch about every single one of these examples. But in those discussions, posts along the lines of "dude, distortions and corruption are everywhere... shut up or go live in the bush" get modded all the way down, not all the way up. Fascinating, isn't it? It's enough to make one think the real issue is not that people really want less-distorted markets, but that people just want the distortions to be directed to their team rather than others'.
[Speaking of distortions, maybe Slashdot should bow to the times and add a "-1, Wrongspeak" option so the mods can stop twisting the existing categories?]
If FCA wants to maintain their profits, they'll have to raise prices to offset the money they're paying Tesla.
If Tesla wants to maintain their profits, they can lower prices.
If FCA prices are higher and Tesla prices are lower, there are probably some people who will decide to buy a Tesla instead of an FCA.