Elon Musk and Top Tesla Exec Stage Angry Man Speaking Tour

The dialogue from Tesla wasn’t all rainbows and puppies this week.

In oddly coordinated diatribes, CEO Elon Musk and his vice-president of business development took off the soft driving gloves and laid into their competition and the country’s regulators. The message? Put up, pay up, or shut up.

At a Michigan industry conference on Tuesday, Diarmuid O’Connell raked other automakers over the coals for not building enough electric cars. And the ones they do build? Nothing but “kitchen appliances,” he said, according to Forbes. Too small of a range, and to high a price, he added. That adds up to very few vehicles sold.

“The industry is not even trying,” O’Connell said.

O’Connell then slammed the Environmental Protection Agency and California Air Resources Board for not updating their regulations to force automakers to develop more zero emissions vehicles. (California law calls for 15 percent of its fleet to be ZEV by 2025, and automakers who fall short with their product line must buy credits to offset the thirsty fleets.)

Naturally, the rest of the industry picked up the glove and slapped back, arguing that consumers should drive the market, not regulators. “Fuel efficiency is important, but at a price people can afford,” said Wesley Lutz, a representative from the National Automobile Dealers Association.

Fast-forward one day, and Tesla’s CEO launched into a similar tirade during an earnings call. Musk wants CARB’s emissions credits program overhauled, because he feels the regulations aren’t spurring EV sales.

“The California Air Resources Board is being incredibly weak in its application of ZEV credits,” Musk said, according to Bloomberg. “The standards are pathetically low. They need to be increased. There’s massive lobbying by the big car companies from increasing the ZEV credit mandate, which they absolutely damn well should. CARB should damn well be ashamed of themselves.”

What’s going on here? Is this legitimate anger we’re seeing, or just grandstanding and PR? Some might say that Tesla’s soapbox is so high, it can’t see the 200-mile Chevrolet Bolt EV that will launch a year before Tesla’s first affordable electric, the Model 3. Other automakers, including Ford, Nissan and Hyundai, are also preparing 200-plus-mile EVs for launch within a couple of years.

It sounds like Tesla’s EV for the masses will have competition when it arrives. As it stands now, the cheapest Tesla is the newly downgraded Model S 60 that retails for $66,000 (before government incentives).

The EPA, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and CARB are in the midst of a review of their 2025 fuel economy targets. In a preliminary technical report, the agencies said automakers made great technological strides towards achieving the corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) goal of 54.5 miles per gallon. To reach the goal, the agencies claim only two to three percent of the country’s fleet would need to be electric by 2025.