In bureaucracy, truth is often stranger than fiction. A non polluting electric car company gets slammed with fine for “non compliance” for a car that can’t produce any emissions.
That’s weird enough by itself, but even weirder is what else is in the company’s Securities and Exchange Commission report under what they cite as “risks”.
Here’s the relevant page of the report where they talk about risks, including the $275,000 fine from the EPA. Note what is highlighted under that.
They headline that with:
We are subject to substantial regulation, which is evolving, and unfavorable changes or failure by us to comply with these regulations could substantially harm our business and operating results.
That’s right, a zero emissions “green” electric car company cites this as a risk to the company’s business future:
the imposition of a carbon tax or the introduction of a cap-and-trade system on electric utilities could increase the cost of electricity;
You can see the Telsa SEC 10Q report for yourself at:
http://www.faqs.org/sec-filings/100813/TESLA-MOTORS-INC_10-Q/#ixzz0yDhK9ON3
Tesla’s crime? Failing to file for a 2009 emissions “Certificate of Conformity” from the EPA to comply with the “Clean Air Act.” until late in the year. Wait, I thought electric cars were supposed to help clean the air?
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. It is a wonder that anybody would bother even trying to do business anymore where the minefield of bureaucracy looms even for popular and politically correct green companies in California.
h/t to autoblog.com
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Ha ha ha ho ho ho ha ha ho ho……… oh my side hurts.
A bureacracy recognizes neither friend nor foe. They just enforce the regulations. This latest action by the EPA illustrates that perfectly.
We need to recruit willing congressional representatives to document all such cases of EPA run amuck and provide the information open source for all citizens to review. With such a resource, congressional supporters of EPA actions relating to ‘Climate Change’ and Carbon Tax’ can be directly upbraided by their constituents for the resulting stupidity of related EPA actions.
November is just 2 months away. One third of all Senators and all Representatives are up for election and exceedingly vulnerable. We have 2 months to wring out the Carbon Tax supporters and elect new legislators that can and will bring this EPA driven Obamanation to an end.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-A3XHFT5qc&fs=1&hl=en_US]
I wonder how the EPA will manage to mess this one up?
Comparing this to a Tesla is a bit of a stretch but here’s a look at the the Air Car. Runs on air that is both cooled to minus 100 degrees Centigrade and compressed to 4,500 pounds per square inch.
The “urban public transport concept in the form of a train on wheels” is pretty cleaver and the manufacturing approach is very cleaver.
http://www.mdi.lu/english/concept.php
http://www.mdi.lu/english/cityflowair.php
“Charging the car with air is fairly easy-it takes four hours using a household electric outlet or three minutes using special compressed air stations that MDI sells for about $100,000. Obviously, the vehicle also drastically reduces pollution-it takes in polluted outside air, filters it, and expels cleaner air as exhaust. All that for a price tag of between $10,000 and $14,000.”
http://www.technologyreview.com/Infotech/12948/?a=f#afteradbody
We need to change the quote from “Richard III”:
“First, let’s kill all the regulators.” Or better yet: “First let’s kill all the bureaucrats.”
Dan in California is so right. Why any sane person would start a business in California is beyond my understanding. Also beyond me: why the US is not building nuclear power plants as fast as possible, instead of dicking around with wind and solar. Nice to have but if the greenies want less carbon nothing can deliver like a nuke.
Or am I expecting too much, asking a greenie to think?
$275,000 is small change flowing from Tesla to the Feds.
They could just pay it out of the $465 million line of credit they were awarded by the DOE.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/tesla-motors-gets-a-465-million-taxpayer-loan-why/19162090/
Someone is being gamed. I believe it is us, the taxpayers. Again.
pat says:
August 31, 2010 at 4:04 pm
“It was never about the environment. It is about control and redistribution of wealth.”
I think in this case, true, it was never about the environment. It’s about the abolition of consumption. It’s about “de-developing” the country, or, if you will, it’s about weakening the country for takeover.
Lady Life Grows,
I do not know where you get your info about nuclear but it is unfounded. I have worked at a nuclear plant most of my adult life. I was a licensed operator for about 15 years and radiation can be both measured and quantified easily. If low level radiation was an issue then life could not exist on earth, or anywhere else in the universe. All life, including humans, has evolved in a radiation field that has existed since the beginning of time. My occupational dose is a small fraction of what I, and you, have received from natural sources. The dose you have likely received from man made sources, other than medical, is too small to be measured and could only be estimated by your proximity to those sources. There is a good chance that most of your man made dose is from medical treatments probably many orders of magnitude greater than your exposure from either nuclear plants or nuclear weapons.
The only tragedy is “we” have become scared and paranoid about the word nuclear.
Curiousgeorge says:
August 31, 2010 at 2:50 pm
What needs to be regulated is the totally out of control EPA! That bunch of power mad bureaucrats needs to be reined in before they completely destroy the country….
__________________________________________________________________________
You do not understand. The EPA and the rest of the alphabet soup is not there to provide cleaner air, less pollution, safer food, safer products and whatever. No, the government bureaucracies have two real reasons for existing.
First to waste lots of taxpayer dollars. 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal debt and by Federal Government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services which taxpayers expect from their Government. The bankers get ALL your tax dollars so the more the government spends the more money the bankers make – what a deal!
Second the bureaucracies and red tape are used to prevent new business start-ups and to get rid of the competition through the use of the government/industry revolving door. In July, the Washington Post reported that “[t]hree of every four oil and gas lobbyists worked for[the] federal government.” So who is really surprised about the lax enforcement of regulations that led to the BP Blowout?
A friend’s brother, who works for the EPA , said that he was told to go after the Mom&Pop companies and leave the big guys like Exxon and BP alone.
Merit reviews, I’m sure, are still part of the ‘job review’ process … and not to mention expected ‘quotas’ for any enforcement division. Although bureaucracies may look like gray monoliths from the outside, there are still ‘office politics’ played inside at a human-on-human level, with some boss looking to come out ‘on top’ …
.
That *may* be the position for which he was hired … naw, on second thought, that’s too simple; I’m sure that there’s some dark, deep c o n s p i r a c y to it, like you say …
BTW, did see I ‘bankers” mentioned anywhere in your post? By gosh there is … bankers “living in the old noggin rent-free” as they say huh …
.
Shoot — looks like the plants in the US that were going to build the AirCar have been replaced with manufacture in India.
I’m sorry but I’m not buying a car made in India.
To bad, it would have created a lot of jobs and the version that uses gasoline to compress the air as you drive can go from LA to NYC on a single tank of gas.
An average of 27 tons of waste is produced during the manufacturing of one car?
http://www.greenspeed.us/electric_bicycle_manufacture.htm
Glenn says:
August 31, 2010 at 5:00 pm
There is nothing confusing about that. The present government is all about wiping US business off the map.
“Outsoucing is good for America” is what they were chanting, and they used our tax dollars to subsidize transplants to foreign countries. Remember that when you vote.
The EPA lost my respect a long time ago however. Scrap it completely for all I care. Maybe then we can have those nice high mileage diesels as well as manual transmissions, black paint (no joke!), and other things the organization wants banned. If EVs can compete, I say let them. If not, let them fail and move on – simple economics.
(in the interest of full disclosure, I drive my own home converted electric car and love it)
Gutless wonders. Hope they fail.
I would have told the EPA where to get off and WHY..
And backed it with, “defensive weaponry”.
Max
“defensive weaponry” in this case is to tie an EPA administrator to the car, and
force him (her) to breath the fumes from the exhaust.
Brilliant in a way only government can manage.
Let’s let these people run health care for everyone.
Heck, let the run EVERYTHING.
They want to.
I think this has more to say about management or lack of it then anything else. Obviously these people did not do their regulatory homework and were rather slow off the mark. This fine is just a slap on the wrist for questionable competence.
The electric company that supplies me offers “green” energy for a premium price.
Thus at least some of us can recharge our Tesla Roadsters with wind, solar, nuclear, and/or hydro generated electricity if we so choose. Wind and solar are in very limited supply but we have quite a bit of nuclear and hydroelectric in the mix.
Presumably the electric company can’t sell more “green” energy than they acquire otherwise it would be a scam. I’m not sure if anyone other than a few certifiable tree huggers with more money than brains actually buys the green stuff in any case. It’s not like if you don’t buy green they cut you off when they run out of electricity generated by coal and natural gas.
How do we band together and take all of this proper aggression I am sensing here… directly to these taxpayer-funded “public servants?”
What will it take to remove bureaucrats from power??
Definition of “bureaucrat”: unwitting worker bee for the machine.
What can be done to band together and take the fight to them???
After all they are, public servants.
They work for US…..and not vice versa!!!
I repeat: My ******** , hard-earned, tax money is paying for their salary, as is yours.
They work for us….and not vice versa.
Grrrrrrrrr. They make me shoot lightning bolts from my eyes they make me so bloody angry.
Lisa Jackson. You criminal! You and your ilk.
Stand down!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
The EPA regulations may be idiotic, but a competent management would have been aware of those regulations and avoided the fine. One of the editors at Motor Trend also reviewed Tesla’s SEC filings and found some other interesting tidbits. See: http://www.motortrend.com/features/editorial/1009_the_big_picture_volt_face/index.html
1400 new industries come under the EPA regulations, fees and permit requirements, including hospitals.
So the cost of the permits and fines gets passed on to you and I, whenever we purchase the goods and services of these industries. I think that is part of the plan.
“…did not receive a Certificate of Conformity…”
This wording suggests that the car maker applied for the certificate in good time, did not receive it (perhaps because of delay at the EPA), and then went ahead with the sale of the new model before the certificate was received (either by mistake, or as a deliberate decision).
In any case, it looks like the company is (indirectly) blaming the EPA for the delay in the issue of the certificate.
“the imposition of a carbon tax or the introduction of a cap-and-trade system on electric utilities could increase the cost of electricity;”
This is what has happened in New Zealand when our Emmissions Trading Scheme legislation came into effect a few months ago. The cost of all energy has gone up by design, including the cost of electricity from the grid (which is approximately 70% hydroelectric). So it would seem Tesla are correct to view “green” energy legislation as a threat to the viability of electric-powered vehicles.
I would guess that rules like this are part of the reason that we still have not enough jobs for people.
ScottyM says:
August 31, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Sounds like a normal business transaction ~6% commission put into an unaudited “fine slush fund?” Just try to follow that cash flow?