I wonder why Elon Musk is involved in the panel and quoted here. Isn't there a conflict of interest where "investing in research, development and manufacturing facilities for new battery technologies" will indirectly benefit Elon by driving the industry forward?
It will — but not at the expense of others. Anti-competitive rules are generally about sorting benefits that raise all boats and practice where one pushes their competitor down to stay above the water (sorry about the too long sea metaphor).
I was expecting him to be a lot more negative against a terribly unfair competitor, but he proved very insightful, and genuinely concerned for impact. The main consequence of VW investing in those tech in the near future is most likely a raise in prices for rare-earth metal needed for the battery, and more competition, so I don’t see him defending his margins. On the other hand, he is trying to accelerate the legitimisation of what is still a slightly unusual technology. I have no problem with that, even less as he has been repeatedly and transparently doing that.
A conflict of interest is when the decision maker stands to benefit from some outcomes of the decision they are making.
When you are just some person sending your views to a decision maker, that is simply interest. Of course Elon Musk isn't "just some person", but he still doesn't do anything like tell CARB how high to jump.
I don't know if it's a panel. It's just an open letter written by 44 people with interests of different kinds. Somebody else impartial, will surely make the actual decision on what will happen.
That's one way to look at it. Another is "force other companies to become our direct competitors". It's like Apple asking the US government to force feature phone makers to make touchscreen smartphones.
