Anatolii Siryk | Ukrinform | Barcroft Media | Getty Images
LONDON — The chief executive of Ukrainian state energy giant Naftogaz has accused Russia’s Gazprom of using natural gas as a geopolitical weapon, calling on the U.S. and Germany to take action against Moscow while it awaits regulatory approval for a controversial pipeline project.
It comes shortly after the International Energy Agency, the world’s energy watchdog, intervened to call on Russia to send more gas to Europe to alleviate the region’s deepening supply crunch.
The IEA’s statement on Tuesday was seen as a rare rebuke of the Kremlin and lent further support to the view that Moscow has played a role in Europe’s energy crisis — alongside market drivers such as extremely strong commodity prices and low wind output.
European households face a steep jump in energy bills, with nerves growing ahead of winter as power and gas prices soar.
Record prices that really hurt the economy of Ukraine [and] not just Ukraine, the whole region basically. If it is not an economic war, what is that?”
Yuriy Vitrenko
CEO of Naftogaz
Speaking to CNBC via video call, Naftogaz CEO Yuriy Vitrenko said Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom was manipulating the region’s energy crisis to try to strengthen the case for starting flows via Nord Stream 2.
Gazprom did not respond to a CNBC request for comment.
The pipeline is designed to deliver Russian gas directly to Germany via the Baltic Sea, bypassing Ukraine and Poland.
Critics argue the pipeline is not compatible with European climate goals, deepens the region’s dependence on Russian energy exports and will most likely strengthen Russian President Vladimir Putin’s economic and political influence over the region.
The construction of Nord Stream 2 was completed earlier this month. Germany’s energy regulator has since said it now has four months to complete certification of the project after receiving all necessary paperwork for an operating license.
A facility near the starting point of the Nord Stream 2 offshore natural gas pipeline.
Peter Kovalev | TASS | Getty Images
Naftogaz’s Vitrenko said Gazprom was deliberately withholding gas supplies to Europe, blocking access to the gas transmission system of Ukraine from other Russian companies and blocking exports from Central Asia that could go to Ukraine via Russia.
“This is a very clear sign that they are using gas as a geopolitical weapon at the moment,” Vitrenko said.
Kyiv’s relations with Russia plummeted in 2014 after Moscow annexed the Crimea peninsula from Ukraine and supported pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Ukraine says the seven-year conflict has killed more than 14,000 people.
Germany’s warning to Russia
Benchmark European gas prices have skyrocketed more than 250% since January, while benchmark power contracts in France and Germany have both doubled.
EU energy ministers held meetings in Slovenia this week to discuss the bloc’s energy policy.
Outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought to ease long-running concerns about the Nord Stream 2 pipeline during her final visit to Kyiv before leaving office.
Speaking last month alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, Merkel said sanctions may be imposed against Moscow if gas was being used “as a weapon.”
Analysts have questioned how Germany or Europe would determine that to be the case.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel gives a joint news conference with Ukrainian President following their talks at the Mariinsky palace in Kiev, on August 22, 2021.
SERGEY DOLZHENKO | AFP | Getty Images
When asked whether Naftogaz had faith Germany would take appropriate action if Russia’s Gazprom was deemed to be using gas as a geopolitical weapon, Vitrenko replied: “We already see that Gazprom is using gas as a geopolitical weapon. So, it is not about the future, but we are telling them that Gazprom has been using gas as a geopolitical weapon for years.”
“It is happening at the moment … Record prices that really hurt the economy of Ukraine [and] not just Ukraine, the whole region basically. If it is not an economic war, what is that?”
Germany’s ministry for economic affairs and energy declined to comment when contacted by CNBC.
U.S. Senate panel to discuss Nord Stream 2
Naftogaz’s chief executive said he expects President Joe Biden’s administration to immediately reconsider its decision to waive sanctions on Nord Stream 2 AG, the Gazprom-owned, Swiss-registered company working on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.
A further delay to lift the waiver would make such a decision “more and more difficult,” Vitrenko said.
Biden’s administration concluded in May that Nord Stream 2 AG and its CEO engaged in behavior that warranted sanctions. However, Biden waived the sanctions to allow time to work out a deal and continue building ties with Germany.
The U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee is expected to discuss the matter at a closed-door hearing next week. It comes amid intensifying pressure from some Congress members to drop the waiver and impose sanctions.
“First, you show you are compliant and only then you are allowed basically to operate. That’s how it works,” Vitrenko said.
“We expect the U.S. government will reconsider their decision and remove this waiver and will impose sanctions on Nord Stream 2. And then … when they see Gazprom has stopped using gas as a geopolitical weapon, when they see that Gazprom and its subsidiary change something so that they are now compliant with European rules, then these sanctions will be removed. That’s the logical approach.”
“When somebody’s in breach, somebody’s using gas as a geopolitical weapon, you sanction this somebody. And when they behave, you remove these sanctions,” Vitrenko said.
Hyundai Motors is recalling 145,235 EVs and other “electrified” vehicles in the US, citing concerns about a loss of driving power, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Friday.
The NHTSA announced this morning that the recall affects selected IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 EVs, as well as certain luxury Genesis models, including the GV60, GV70, and G80 electrified variants, from the 2022-2025 model years, Reuters reported.
It looks like the issue stems from “the integrated charging control units in these vehicles, which may become damaged and fail to charge the 12-volt battery. This malfunction could lead to a complete loss of drive power, posing safety risks for drivers,” the NHTSA stated.
If you’re an owner of one of these Hyundai models dating 2022-2025, stay tuned. Hyundai has not yet provided a timeline as to when affected vehicles will be repaired.
To make that happen, the company’s dealers will inspect and replace the charging unit and its fuse if necessary, NHTSA said. Free of charge, of course.
Importantly, no crashes, injuries, fatalities, or fires due to this issue have been reported in the US, Hyundai reported.
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Tesla announced that ‘Actually Smart Summon,’ its autonomous driving feature that enables moving its vehicles without anyone inside over short distances, is now being launched in Europe and the Middle East.
The automaker’s Full Self-Driving suite of features has been limited in those markets due to regulations and Tesla’s focus on making them work in North America first.
Actually Smart Summon is the vision-only version of Tesla’s “smart summon” feature, which was released years ago on Tesla vehicles with ultrasonic sensors.
When Tesla transitioned away from ultrasonic sensors, Smart Summon was one of the missing features that Tesla had yet to adapt to the vision-only (cameras and neural nets) system.
However, that’s only in North America where Tesla focuses its Full Self-Driving (FSD) development, the feature package that includes Actually Smart Summon, also referred to as ‘ASS’.
Most of Tesla’s other markets, including Europe, don’t have the same capabilities under the Full Self-Driving package. That’s partly due to regulations, but Tesla also focuses on making the features work on North American roads first.
Now, Tesla has announced that its Actually Smart Summon feature is launching in Europe and the Middle East:
The feature can only be used on private roads, like parking lots and driveways. Most people have used it to bring their vehicles parked in a large parking lot to them as they exit a store or restaurant. However, the vehicle moves quite slowly under the feature and the owner needs to keep an eye on it at all time and be ready to cancel the summon as Tesla doesn’t take any responsibility for accidents caused by using Actually Smart Summon., like all other FSD features.
Therefore, most people I know who have the feature, myself included, tried once or try to see or impress some friends who have never seen a car move without anyone inside and then stopped using it.
The feature’s main useful use-case is for people with extremely tight parking spots. It enables them to exit the vehicle before it is in its final parking spot and then move the car in and out remotely.
However, that has been the case for years with the regular Smart Summon, as you generally don’t need the vehicle to handle complex parking lots. You mostly need it to move a few feet forward or backward.
US Automakers are planning to ask Mr. Trump to retain President Biden’s EPA exhaust rules, in the face of signs that Mr. Trump might try to reverse them. If the rules are reversed, it would cost Americans hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of deaths per year.
Interestingly, this is the opposite of what big auto did the last time a reality TV show came to the White House – signaling that they have perhaps learned their lesson this time ’round.
First, some history.
In the middle of the 20th century, the effects of human activity on the atmosphere became readily apparent. Certain cities – with Los Angeles among the forefront – were choked by smog, and it was soon found out that vehicle pollution was the primary reason for this smog.
Since Los Angeles was one of the most smog-choked cities, California led the way on clean air regulation, creating the California Air Resources Board in 1967 (under then-Governor Ronald Reagan).
The federal government gave California special dispensation to set stricter regulations than the rest of the country, in recognition that it had a unique smog problem in its primary metropolis. California has retained this dispensation, in the form of a “waiver,” since then. And other states can follow California’s rules, but only if they copy all of the rules exactly.
Thus, there have been two separate sets of clean air regulation in this country since then – the federal rules, and then the “CARB states” which follow California’s rules.
In 2012 that finally changed, when President Obama’s EPA negotiated with California to finally harmonize these standards and also implement higher fuel efficiency nationwide. This would have been a huge boon for both industry and consumers, saving money and giving regulatory certainty to the auto industry.
But then, in 2016, the candidate who got the 2nd most votes in the presidential election was headed for the White House. And automakers responded by immediately lobbying to torpedo these standards, even before inauguration.
Now, you might think that asking a profoundly ignorant individual, who ended up staffing the EPA with bought-and-sold science deniers (huh, that would never happen again would it?), to change rules which had already been set through years of negotiation and lobbying was not a great idea. And you’d be right.
Not long after automakers had the dumb idea to ask an idiot to fix something that wasn’t broken, that idiot went and broke things further, fracturing the agreement between California and the federal government and ensuring less regulatory certainty for automakers.
But it was too late, and we are now back in the era of disparate regulatory regimes – something which John Bozzella, head of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation (formerly called Global Automakers), keeps complaining about these days, despite having lobbied for exactly this in the first place.
The US EPA and California are still not fully harmonized, but both released recent new standards which do have somewhat similar targets. If a manufacturer builds towards one set of rules, they’ll probably not be too far off from meeting the other.
So in the end, we did get better emissions regulations and California has continued to push forward with clean air regulations, thus signaling a failure on the part of Mr. Trump to cause the long term harm to Americans that he and his oil industry solicitors so desperately seem to desire.
The most recent EPA standards, finalized in March (after being softened at the auto industry’s request), do not mandate any particular powertrain, but rather require steep emissions cuts – and EVs are the easiest way to achieve lower emissions.
Notably, Tesla lobbied in favor of making this last set of standards stronger, and they also lobbied against ruining the Obama/CA standards in 2016 – being one of very few automakers who were on the correct side of that discussion.
Despite that the President Biden EPA’s rules do not mandate any particular powertrain, Mr. Trump, in his usual ignorance, has said that he will end the nonexistent EV mandate. And now that he has received more votes than his opponent for the first time (after three tries, and despite committing treason in 2021 for which there is a clear legal remedy), it looks like the upcoming EPA might be directed to end these emissions cuts and fuel/health cost savings for Americans.
But in this instance, it sounds like the automakers might actually do the right thing for once, and ask the government not to do any rollbacks, and instead let them continue on with the plans without disruption from a convicted felon who seems determined to cede a US EV manufacturing boom back to China.
Detroit’s Big Three automakers – GM, Ford and Stellantis – are all reportedly trying to figure out how to ensure that these rules stay in place. The mentality is that constantly changing regulations are not beneficial for companies – particularly in the auto realm, where models take on the order of 7 years to plan and execute. Long-term planning is important for the hundreds of billions in manufacturing investment that EVs have attracted in the US during Biden’s EV push.
These attitudes are notable, given that this is not what automakers did in 2016/2017. That time, they compulsively pushed for fewer regulations, and now they are asking for regulations to remain in place.
It’s further notable that Tesla CEO Elon Musk, whose company lobbied strongly in favor of emissions cuts and makes more use of the federal EV tax credit than any other company, is now allied with the very entity that’s looking to harm EVs. It seems that we have entered opposite world.
On the other hand, a former reality TV host – tagged along with by the CEO of the company that has sold more electric cars than any other – seem determined to kill electric cars, despite the harm that would cause to Americans’ pocketbooks and health insurance premiums. And that famously vindictive character may be even more spurred towards this harmful course of action after failing in his efforts the first time.
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