Michigan suedes oil companies for collusion to restrain competition in EVs

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed an antitrust suit against four major oil firms on Friday, alleging that they have colluded over decades to prevent competition from renewable energy sources, including?electric cars.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, western Michigan, names BP and Chevron. It also names ExxonMobil, Shell, and the American Petroleum Institute. The lawsuit said that the companies had acted as a "cartel, agreeing to limit the production and distribution electricity from renewable resources and to restraint the emergence electric vehicles and'renewable primary energies technologies in the United States.

Shell refused to comment. Shell declined to comment.

The lawsuit said that the companies "abandoned renewable energy projects, used patent law to hinder competitors, suppressed the information regarding the hidden costs and viability alternatives of fossil fuels...?and coordinated market-wide efforts in order to divert capital spending away from'renewable energies--all for the furtherance of one of the most successful antitrust conspiracy in United States history."

In the suit, it was noted that Exxon had developed hybrid gas and electric vehicle technologies in the 1970s. Exxon also publicly displayed an integrated electric motor in a hybrid propulsion system in a Chrysler Cordoba in 1978. And in 1979, Exxon and Toyota partnered to "develop" a gas and electrical vehicle using the Toyota Cressida's chassis.

The lawsuit stated that Exxon "never marketed this innovative hybrid engine technology" and "consistently deferred meaningful investments in its lithium-ion- and graphite based battery technologies for electric vehicles." Exxon's own internal research from 1979 "predicted renewable energy would become a growing threat to fossil fuels."

The lawsuit also claimed that Chevron had taken steps to?delay a critical EV technology and battery known as Nickel-metal?hydride rechargeable Batteries by acquiring Patents restricting their use in cars.

After the Biden administration adopted rules that required automakers build a growing number of EVs, the Trump administration took a series actions to make it easier for them to avoid building EVs. Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and Mike Scarcella; editing by Aurora Ellis

(source: Reuters)