How DfT helped Tesla keep its lobbying secret
Revealed: The emails from officials guiding Tesla on how to hide its policy asks
Hello, I’m Tom Riley, and welcome back to The Fast Charge, a British EV newsletter.
Top story in today’s edition... I’ve obtained emails that show how officials at the Department for Transport guided Tesla on how to keep its lobbying efforts hidden from public view.
Elsewhere... A huge month for EV registrations, new cheaper tariffs, but both carmakers and networks hold clenched fists over the mandate review.
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🚨 Revealed: The emails showing how officials helped Tesla keep its lobbying secret
Summary: The Department for Transport guided Tesla on which legal arguments to use so that the US carmaker’s lobbying, which included asking for ‘preferential tax for EVs’, could be withheld from public disclosure, emails obtained by The Fast Charge reveal.
Context... In 2025, the UK Government kicked off the year with a consultation about making changes to the Zero Emission Vehicle mandate. This consultation included asking carmakers about what incentives or changes could boost the uptake of electric cars. That consultation concluded in April 2025, with the Prime Minister announcing a host of new flexibilities to support carmakers. Later in the year, a new Electric Car Grant was launched, followed by more funding for charge points.
Further to efforts by this newsletter... by Summer 2025, the submissions by major manufacturers, such as JLR, BMW, Volkswagen, and Toyota, were released by DfT. However, the submissions belonging to Ford, Mercedes-Benz, and Tesla were not. I challenged this in Autumn last year and, after several months, these other submissions were released.
BUT... Tesla’s submission contained around five pages of entirely redacted pages. This included Tesla’s policy suggestions on which incentives DfT should employ to boost EV demand, which were entirely blacked out. This means, while we know what every other carmaker asked for, we know very little about what Tesla lobbied officials for.
Until today... As I have since obtained the email exchanges between DfT officials and Tesla discussing the disclosure of their consultation response. And I was pretty shocked by it. Not by Tesla’s objections, but by how DfT seemed to have gone about the whole thing.
For example... After Tesla initially objected to releasing their entire response, an unnamed DfT official appears to have simply accepted the company’s argument without any pushback. In a two-sentence email in July 2025, they confirmed that Tesla’s response would not be released.
However... Following my request that DfT review its decision in Autumn, they entirely reversed their position. DfT instead put a long explanation to Tesla as to why the exemption they first used under the Environmental Information Regulations was incorrect.
And that’s not the only revelation... In the same email to Tesla, DfT set out how the US carmaker could use an alternative legal exemption under transparency laws to keep its contentious areas redacted. The DfT official explained in detail the four-part evidential test that Tesla would need to satisfy so DfT could hold them back. The department then gave Tesla five days to submit a fresh argument.
