Tesla Model S Buyers Fined In Singapore For Emissions

Vice President of an Internet analytic firm, Joe Nguyen, has been fined for buying Tesla Model S as authorities believe the vehicle has higher emission levels.

In the United States, purchasers of Tesla Model S are provided a tax credit by the federal government of US worth $7500. In Singapore, apparently, purchasers of Model S are fined around $11,000. $400,000 were paid out by Joe Nguyen for purchasing his Model S P85 in Hong Kong (about $51,000), then imported it to Singapore where he suffered from a rude awakening that was basically regarding his tailpipe’s length.

First, a testing procedure was followed to legalize the vehicle in Singapore taking at least 2 months. Then, instead of being offered a rebate worth $10,880 (S$15,000) under the Carbon Emissions Vehicle Scheme of Singapore, Joe was actually fined for that amount following the compulsory “emissions” testing done on the vehicle by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore. Finally, the authority decided that Model S was not environmental-friendly.

The matter is so-called “upstream” emissions and it was determined that Model S was using enough levels of electricity to be called as a polluter. Autoblog is still making efforts to find out how have they calculated, but it is suffice to say that Model S used estimated 444 Wh/Km driven.

Official US specifications claim that if Model S has 90KWH capacity and provides 270 miles on a full charge, it uses around 210 Wh/Km.

Autoblog is a little confused by the mathematics used by Singaporean authorities here and the reason that led to the calculation of upstream emission levels of a plug-in automobile, unless the regulatory bodies act in the same manner for gas-fuelled vehicles.

According to reports of Straits Times, CEO Elon Musk wonders what is happening too. He had developed good relations with the Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Hsien Loong, who visited the Silicon Valley, California. Elon tweeted on March 4 that he and the PM "spoke earlier today and he said he would investigate the situation."

A representative of the American EV maker did not responded to a follow-up request by Autoblog Green. According to CNBC, a private automobile inspection provider VICOM, which conducted a test for the transport authority of Tesla, discovered that 2014 Model S of Nguyen had an equivalent CO2 emission level of 222g/km. The calculation of the emissions were done using “grid emissions factor” that values the emission levels produced by power use, in the case of the automaker, when it turns electricity into energy.

Nguyen, who serves as an internet analytics firm’s vice president was outraged that an EV attracted an emission surcharge. He claims that a test conducted by the Land Transport Authority of Singapore according to its Carbon Emission-based Vehicle Scheme (CEVS) was defective.

CEVS of Singapore aims to provide incentives to customers to compel them to buy vehicles with lower carbon emission levels by providing up rebates worth around $21,643.77 with low carbon emission levels and imposing surcharges of around $21.643.77 on automobiles with high carbon emission levels.