Where Elon Musk and Tesla Earn Real Credit 'Eating the Lunch' of Auto Competitors
University Fellow Benjamin Leard is quoted extensively in a story for CNBC on the auto industry's system of renewable energy credits.
Renewable energy analysts agree about the lack of transparency. Unlike California’s greenhouse gas cap-and-trade market which has transparent pricing and volumes, most of the information about the ZEV trading remains obscure. “Car companies might know what these credit prices are going for, but it’s really hard to say how much information they even have when making choices,” said Benjamin Leard, an environmental economist and fellow at Resources for the Future, who has made estimates of the trading market based on California’s required disclosures. “There’s room for improvement,” he said...
For the zero-emission credits, it will continue to be “a seller’s market,” Leard said. While he says traditional auto companies are moving in the right direction, with projects coming in future years like Ford’s electric F150 pickup truck and the electric Mustang Mach-E, “The big boys, the Fords and GMs, these companies are still kind of far from really getting a good high-selling electric vehicle on the market.”
