{"id":1535,"date":"2020-12-02T15:39:31","date_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:39:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1330282"},"modified":"2020-12-02T15:39:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-02T15:39:31","slug":"astongate-aston-martin-exec-behind-pr-firm-peddling-bogus-anti-ev-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=1535","title":{"rendered":"Astongate: Aston Martin exec behind \u2018PR firm\u2019 peddling bogus anti-EV study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Strap yourselves in folks, because we\u2019ve got a wild one for you. It\u2019s perhaps the wildest story since General Motors decided it would be a good idea to acquire hydrogen truck startup Nikola<\/a> \u2014 the deal has since fallen through, though<\/a> \u2014 so this is bigger.<\/p>\n

Reports are surfacing that British sports car maker and James Bond\u2019s ride of choice, Aston Martin, were behind a study that tried to cast doubt on the green credentials of electric vehicles.<\/p>\n

The study, which was presented as \u201cgroundbreaking,\u201d<\/a> has since been debunked by EV researcher Auke Hoekstra. It alleged that electric cars need to travel as far as 50,000 miles before they can match the carbon footprint of petrol models.<\/p>\n

\n

New ‘study’ claims it takes 48k miles for electric vehicles to emit less CO2 than gasoline cars.<\/p>\n

But it’s just a misleading brochure.
Reality is closer 16k miles.<\/p>\n

UK media including @thetimes<\/a> where mislead by this carmaker-paid attack on @BorisJohnson<\/a>‘s green plans. (thread) pic.twitter.com\/ozuhbX8NXU<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 AukeHoekstra (@AukeHoekstra) November 27, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This kind of argument has been debunked countless times, and generally it goes something like this: anti-EV campaigners claim that the increased CO2 of producing electric cars means they have to be driven for many miles until they make good sense. Sometimes anti-EV campaigners claim that energy production can also create CO2 \u2014 if it\u2019s not renewable \u2014 and so adds to an EV\u2018s footprint.<\/p>\n

[Read: Why this security engineer loves working in infosec<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

As it turns out, the report published last Thursday, was commissioned by companies including Aston Martin, Bosch, Honda, and McLaren not long after the UK\u2019s prime minster announced that gasoline vehicles would be banned from 2030<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The report was published by a PR company going by the name Clarendon Communications and was presented as its own work.<\/p>\n

However, Bloomberg\u2018s Michael Liebreich found the companies that commissioned the study were also those that wrote the study.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Clarendon Communications appears to be nothing more than a \u201csock-puppet\u201d PR firm, which was set up in February this year and its registered owners are James Michael Stephens, Aston Martin\u2019s government affairs director, and his spouse Rebecca Caroline Stephens.<\/p>\n

The registered address (redacted from the tweet) is a propertyowned by the couple.<\/p>\n

\n

OMG. It’s Sat afternoon, nothing good on Netflix. So for \u00a33, I ask the Land Registry who owns the registered address of @ClarendonComms<\/a>‘s only director (redacted so I can’t be accused of doxing). It’s @jamesvsjaws<\/a> Director of Government and External Affairs at @AstonMartin<\/a>! \ud83e\udd2f pic.twitter.com\/ncYoUhgZOy<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Michael Liebreich (@MLiebreich) November 28, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Rebecca Stephens, who is a Nurse, told The Guardian<\/a> that the report was compiled by the same companies that commissioned the study. Adding that Bosch contacted Clarendon Communications \u201cto provide public affairs and stakeholder support\u201d so its logo and contact details appear on the back of the report \u201cfor this purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bosch says that it fully supports the report, which was built upon independent and referenced data.<\/p>\n

The debacle is already being referred to as \u201cAstongate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aston Martin is yet to comment on the situation, but it has a lot of explaining to do and there are lots of questions to answer. As CleanTechnica asks: is Aston Martin intentionally spreading misinformation?<\/a> Is it behind Clarendon Communications? Or in other words, what on earth is going?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll be following up on this story in the coming weeks, there\u2019s no doubt we haven\u2019t seen the end yet.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

<\/a>SHIFT<\/a> is brought to you by Polestar. It\u2019s time to accelerate the shift to sustainable mobility. That is why Polestar combines electric driving with cutting-edge design and thrilling performance.<\/i> Find out how<\/span><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n

Published December 2, 2020 \u2014 15:39 UTC <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Strap yourselves in folks, because we\u2019ve got a wild one for you. It\u2019s perhaps the wildest story since General Motors decided it would be a good idea to acquire hydrogen truck startup…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1536,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}