Pull Over! You're Not CARB Certified!!

Add this one to the “Bureaucrats Gone Wild” file.  Apparently Tesla Motors, which makes an all-electric (meaning it has a battery and motors, no engine at all and thus no fuel burning) car, is in violation of California’s Clean Air Act because they never submitted their emissions-free car to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) for certification.

So they’re being fined $275,000 because they didn’t fill out some paperwork and waste a lot of time with their car sitting in a garage somewhere while some overpaid lame ducks eyeballed it and ate donuts, pretending to “measure” non-existent items on the car.  Like emissions.

This isn’t the first time this inanity has happened either.  A few months ago, I was in Colorado for the Denver Auto Show and made an appointment to visit with Boulder Electric Vehicle to check out their Class B all-electric truck.  Except they didn’t have the prototype there because… well, it was in California to get CARB certified.  Even though, again, it’s electric.

It turns out, every vehicle to be sold in California, no matter what it’s propulsion system, has to go through CARB certification.  Even if, as with Tesla and BEV, it’s just a paperwork shuffle.  No matter what, the bureaucrats in CARB have to physically see and handle and eat donuts in the vehicle to be “certified.”

This inanity is just one of many things that raise the costs of new vehicles for you and me.  For no reason.  Other than to feed some government employees inflated salaries and add on extra fees (or fines) to the final product.

I think I’ll forward this post to John Stossel.  I don’t think he does the Gimme a Break thing anymore, but this would fit perfectly.  Maybe Penn and Teller will do a BullSh*t episode on it.

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