Elon Musk: Dear VW, ditch diesels and make electric cars
Tesla’s owner and environmental group demand German car-maker should be forced to focus on electric vehiclesA list of high profile environmentalists and Silicon Valley leaders, including Tesla's Elon Musk, have united to publish a letter to lobby Volkswagen to give up on diesel and focus on making cleaner, pure electric vehicles.
Musk's lobby group sent its letter to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) - the governmental agency set up to protect the Californian State's residents from poor air quality.
Written in response to the Dieselgate scandal, Musk's group comes up with a radical plan "cure the air, not the car" by, effectively, letting Volkswagen off paying the billion dollar fines it faces.
Instead of wasting money on fixes, Musk's group's plan forces VW to invest billions in making zero emission vehicles.
Since this will create a bottleneck for batteries, money should also be set aside to create new factories, say the group, to make the battery cell for the increased number of cars produced.
Since VW cheated the tests in California, the group says these should be built in the same State creating valuable jobs.
If CARB agrees with the proposals and lobbies the US Government the knock-on effect could be global, says industry commentators. If forced to invest billions in pure-electric technology it could persuade the entire Volkswagen Group to fast-forward its transition to a pure electric future.
Volkswagen, or CARB have yet to comment on the letter's content.
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