Elon Musk’s Tesla lobbied UK to charge petrol drivers more | Global News Avenue

In the days after Labor won the election, Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla urged the government to make petrol drivers “pay more”.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has publicly waded into British politics on social media, predicting “civil war” and criticizing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.

But behind the scenes, his company is trying to convince the new administration to extend a policy that could boost corporate profits.

The company called for mandates to boost electric car sales to be extended to trucks and said electric vehicle (EV) subsidies could come from charging people who buy petrol and diesel cars.

“The government should ask those who still choose to buy new polluting vehicles to pay more,” Tesla Europe boss Joe Ward wrote to roads minister Lilian Greenwood in July wrote a letter.

This letter was released following a Freedom of Information request Electric vehicle communication fast chargingstating that Tesla “applauds Labour’s strong stance on decarbonisation, growth and net zero emissions of the energy system by 2030”.

The praise comes just weeks after Musk lashed out at the British government online over the summer’s unrest.

The BBC reported in September that Musk was not invited to the government’s investment summit, in part because of tensions caused by his political interference.

Since then, the billionaire has become an indispensable right-hand man to incoming US President Donald Trump. The value of his Tesla shares has soared since the election, underpinning Musk’s astonishing rise in wealth.

The UK government is currently consulting on changes to a key measure aimed at encouraging electric car sales – the Zero Emission Vehicles (ZEV) Directive.

The ZEV directive requires carmakers to sell a certain number of electric vehicles each year, and if they can’t hit the target, they must buy credits from other electric carmakers selling more low-polluting cars.

British carmakers are pushing to weaken the policy, saying customers are not buying enough electric cars.

Tesla’s letter lobbied for the opposite policy, saying the ZEV mandate “must be protected and strengthened.”

Tesla will be a major beneficiary of the ZEV mandate as it can sell remaining credits for imported Chinese-made electric vehicles of its own.

Tesla also lobbied the new UK government to lead “autonomous vehicle scaling” and presented the two companies’ vision.