Fact Checking
Well-Known Member
By the way. The 2 billion number comes from the Financial Times (actually the headline says 1.8 billion euros). The article is behind a paywall and I don't think I've actually seen it so not sure what the wording is but the Financial Times doesn't really make up stuff they don't have reliable sources for.
The headline says
Fiat Chrysler to spend €1.8bn on CO2 credits from Tesla
It says to spend, not to save or recover. Sure, wording and headlines aren't always correct but this isn't written in a way to give doubt.
Note that the Financial Times is owned by Japanese old money, and they are generally happy to help out in information warfare of the Japanese industry heavyweights (Nissan in this case).
Here's the exact wording from February:
I'm sure more details will be disclosed, but until then let's attempt to read between the lines and speculate about the sum:
The big question: why keep this secret? It would come out in Tesla financials anyway.
- The exact wording in the FT was:
- "Fiat Chrysler Automobiles has agreed to pay Tesla hundreds of millions of euros so the electric carmaker’s vehicles are counted in its fleet in order to avoid large fines for breaking tough new EU emissions rules."
- "Analysts at Jefferies forecast FCA could face fines in excess of €2bn in 2021 when the new targets become law. "
- The Financial Times is owned by "The Nikkei" Japanese business media giant with opaque ownership - Japanese old money I suspect?
- The source of the story was FCA. To FCA this is probably a negative story, and they'd want to break it slowly, with a drip-drip of details.
- Tesla is probably under NDA until they must file financials. No big motivation for them to leak.
- "Hundreds of millions of euros" is 200m-900m. "Hundreds of" technically includes 200-999m, but above 500m the "more than half a billion" would be more appropriate.
- FCA's motivation is probably to downplay the figures: this is an extra cost. If it was only 200m then I'd expect them to leak that. If it was say 300m then they could say 'low hundreds of".
- FCA probably has no motivation to exaggerate the sum.
- Hence my guess: 400-600m euros, which is $450m-$670m.
- Less or more is possible as well, but I'd be surprised if it was below 300m: FCA would leak it immediately, plus it's too low compared to the looming 2 billion euros fine per year.
Speculation only. Not advice. Might have to eat crow.
The journalist writing this later narrowed it to "low hundreds of millions of Euros" on Twitter - which is in line with my €360m estimate for 2020.
Actual payments to Tesla could be much higher due to the PSA merger, and due to the IMO rosy "we'll sell a lot of EVs" expectations of FCA leadership.