About three weeks ago Tesla disclosed in their S-1 filing that they had sold 368 EV credits to Honda for a reported $13,800,000. And since then Honda has picked up the option to buy another 287.
If you wicked good with using a calculator like myself, it is not hard to figure out that per credit that works out to be about $37,500 a pop. Thats a lot of scratch for credits…so could (and will) Nissan be able to do the same with their excess credits?
Well probably not $37,500, but they certainly would fetch some value on the open market if Nissan chooses to sell them. Only the precious first few thousand could command that kind of premium.
For Honda, the value with Tesla’s credits is that they exist. As in right now. You see, few year’s ago (like two) the California’s Zero Emission Vehicle law went into effect, saying that the big 5 (Honda, Toyota, Ford, GM and Nissan) must build a certain number of zero emiision vehicles if their sales were over 60,000 units in Califonia, and must do it by the end of 2011.. Time is ticking…and what does Honda have now or on the horizon through 2011? Zip.
Toyota could potentially have the same problem looming, considering they have almost a quarter of the Californian market. The plug-in Prius likely only exists due to this legislation. (it is due out in fall of 2011) Other notables, like GM, while the strongest auto maker (by volume in the country) has a much smaller presence in the state, so they don’t have to worry about the number of Volts they ship really…and you will notice Chrysler isn’t even on the list. Apparently celebs and the rich do not /heart the pentastar.
Past the minimum zero emission vehicle hurdle, the value of the credits lies with new CAFE standards…this is where Nissan can make some money. In 2011 the standard goes to 30.2 MPG for cars/24.1 MPG for trucks, but rapidly accelerates to 38.1 cars/ 34.1 trucks. A lot of companies are going to have trouble with these numbers. And for every ZEV (zero emission vehicle) like the LEAF you sell, you can wipe away any TWO other petrol vehicles.
Also, CARB has a insanely complex ZEV program coming online now, which I won’t go into (endless math, and vehicle allowances to account for), but lets just say for every vehicle a manufacturer fails to produce under the minimum….$5,000 fine.
For other auto makers compliance with these new tough laws could mean investments of billions of dollars in the short term that they are quite frankly ill-prepared to make. For Nissan, as the undisputed leader in all things ZEV, they are in a great place to either sell these credits, or to horde them to themselves and be the only auto maker left standing able to continue to sell ‘land whales’ to the more well heeled among us.
![Will Ferrell Spotted Driving a Nissan LEAF [Video]](http://nissan-leaf.net/wp-content/themes/bigfoot/includes/timthumb.php?src=
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I believe that CAFE mpg rating is not the what you see in the sticker when you buy a car.. the sticker is about 20% downgraded.. thus the combined 34mpg of the fleet turns out to be about 27mpg on the sticker. So for every Camaro GM sells (21mpg) they have to sell two Aveos (30mpg combined). Did I understand how that works?
What manufacturer will have trouble complying with the 2016 CAFE rules?
Herm Perez(Quote)
Is this the reason the Nissan Altima hybrid is only sold in 7 states?.. Got this from the Nissan website:
“Altima Hybrid is available in California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont, Oregon, Rhode Island, Maine and New Jersey. Service of hybrid components outside those states is limited and could involve some days delay”.
Herm Perez(Quote)
The new CAFE system is not going to allow averaging of BEV cars and, say, SUVs for the most part. That’s because the system is set up so that one averages together the vehicles that have the same “footprint” (area marked off by drawing a box where the 4 wheels touch the ground). So different kinds of vehicles built on the same size chassis can be averaged, but different sizes cannot be.
Adopting the system above created a lot of controversy. It was done to be “equitable” to all the companies, which seems to have meant to protect the manufacturers of big vehicles, such as gm and ford. But it took away incentives for manufacturers to try to entice customers into smaller cars, which would have given a much bigger boost to mileage and emission improvements. There was considerable protest from Honda, but in the end it didn’t matter.
Now CARB is another world, about which I know nothing, but one of the statements in the new CAFE bill was that it would unify regulations across states. Then again, there may be a phase in process.
RB(Quote)
The posted table is perhaps overly simple in seeming to make an easy correspondence between CO2 limits, which are what is in the bill, and mpg, because manufacturers get CO2 credits for things such as good A/C systems, which may even make mpg worse. It is not to say that the correspondence in the table is wrong, only that it is approximate.
But it is fascinating that Tesla was able to sell credits for such a huge amount of money.
RB(Quote)
it does not look like things are going to work that way, unless Aveo and Camero have the same footprint in 2014, which is doubtful
I think we are mixing up what has to be done in the short term to meet CA’s CARB and what is done by the new federal law.
RB(Quote)
Did GM really lower the 2012 production numbers from 60k to 30k?
James(Quote)
For the Volt?.. I think the maximum capacity (Hamtramck) has been 60k a year but I dont think that was actually promised. The new LG battery plant in Holland, MI will be able to make 60k battery packs by 2012.
http://media.gm.com/content/media/us/en/news/news_detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2009/Dec/1207_GM_DHam
Herm Perez(Quote)
Yup, per Ed Whitacre’s speach!
Go EV!!!
Future LEAF Driver(Quote)
Found it…Wall Street Journal posted 7/1/2010 – 10,000 Volts in 2011 and 30,000 in 2012. Check out the link below. Only 30k in 2011? That does not sound correct. With Nissan taking over 21,000 reservations in less than 2 months should prove the demand is there. Why only 30k?
http://bit.ly/baod2h
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703571704575341263965695110.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
James E(Quote)
Yes, it is also posted on the WSJ. 30k..why?
James(Quote)
Just wanted to tell you that your article is not showing up properly on the BlackBerry Browser. No problem, I’m now visiting secure event RSS feed on my work station, THANKS!
Ticket Events(Quote)