Tesla's engineers are working with the Land Transport Authority to see if the electric car that was issued a carbon surcharge of S$15,000 was tested correctly.

This development was reported in The Straits Times on Friday, March 11.

The Tesla Model S car was imported into Singapore by Joe Nguyen, 44. The car was first registered in 2014 in Hong Kong and raked up a mileage of 1,000km before it was shipped here. It was declared road-ready after one year of back-and-forth with the authorities.

This latest development comes just days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk spoke to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, a conversation that has been confirmed by a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to have happened. Musk said that PM Lee told him that “he would investigate the situation”.

And it follows the LTA's response on Facebook two days ago on Wednesday, where the explanation offered was that the Tesla Model S it tested had a high electrical consumption of 444 Wh/km as it was a used vehicle. Hence, it fell into the CEVS C3 band.

LTA has confirmed that if the car was brand new and fell into the CEVS A1 band, it would have enjoyed a S$15,000 rebate with the energy consumption rating of 181Wh/km.

LTA said all imported cars are tested individually.

ON the other hand, Tesla has confirmed with Tech in Asia on Friday that they are working with LTA to re-examine the case.

Tesla issued a statement in response to Tech in Asia's query on the huge difference between the energy efficiency of the used Tesla Model S when it was rolled out of the factory in 2014, and when a test was conducted by car inspection firm Vicom and LTA.

The car’s Certificate of Conformity stated that its consumption rating was 181 Wh/km, but Vicom’s test put it at 444 Wh/km.

The electric car company said: “We believe the test was likely not properly conducted, and we are working cooperatively with the LTA to test the car again.”

On the other hand, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has said that the LTA appears to have applied their emissions testing method correctly.

This is so as LTA appears to be the only national regulator to have included power grid emission into the evaluation of electric vehicles’ carbon footprint.

A 0.5g CO2/Wh grid emission factor was applied by the regulator, a point that was disputed by the Tesla car owner.

You can read Tesla's statement on their website here.

Related articles:

LTA responds: Imported Tesla car a used vehicle so it had higher electrical consumption

Elon Musk responds to situation where Tesla car owner paid $15k LTA surcharge

Guy imports electric Tesla Model S car into S’pore, takes 1 year just to get it licensed for road use

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