Elon Musk was among the forty-five signatories on an open letter to the California Air Resource Board, urging CARB to direct beleaguered pollution manufacturer Volkswagen to build more electric vehicles.
The letter suggested that instead of fixing the small number of diesel cars on the road in California, Volkswagen should be required to build more zero-emissions vehicles (ZEVs) than currently required. The letter also suggested that Volkswagen be allowed to buy additional ZEV credits to allow more time for development.
“Conveniently, Tesla sells ZEV credits to other manufacturers. In fact, selling ZEV credits is the only thing that makes the company profitable,” neither the letter nor Elon Musk said.
Volkswagen expressed relief at the contents of the letter.
“We’re very pleased that Elon Musk and his friends have told us the best way to run our business,” said Volkswagen spokeswagen Hermann Van Agon. “We’ve been spinning our wheels since just after World War II, desperately waiting for someone to come along and tell us what to do. The Beetle, the Bus, the Golf, the GTI — people think these were brilliant products, but in fact they were all just lucky breaks. Now that Mr. Musk has spoken up, we can finally get on with the business of building proper cars.”
“All I want to do is make the world a better place,” Elon Musk told Autoblopnik during a quick break between nap time and macaroni painting. “This isn’t about me. This isn’t about Tesla. It’s about demanding that the automakers clean up our planet by making more electric cars. That way they won’t have to rely on companies like mine to sell them ZEV credits. Of course, that means we’d have to design a car that was actually profitable, and… er… oh, crap. Excuse me a minute. Linda? Hey, Linda? You didn’t mail that letter to CARB yet, did you?”
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