American Electric Power CEO Would Love To Own A Tesla, But Won’t Buy One … Cause It’s A Tesla

Tesla Motors has done a lot to improve public perception of electric vehicles in recent years, and has arguably been one of the main driving forces behind many current trends in the auto industry.

With this growing public prestige, even many of those who would ostensibly be “enemies” of the firm have been forced to acknowledge that the company makes great vehicles.

This is, understandably, causing some conflict of loyalty for some people. A case in point: the American Electric Power CEO recently revealed that he was in the market for an electric vehicle (EV) and he thought Tesla’s cars were “great” … but he couldn’t support the company by purchasing one. This is mostly because the CEO is Elon Musk, who is also intimately involved with SolarCity (Elon is chairman of the board and Tesla is on the verge of acquiring SolarCity). This is a thorn in the side of the utility company, since SolarCity’s support of net metering in Ohio (and elsewhere) is opposed to American Electric Power’s aim to eliminate net metering.

This CEO, Nick Akins, was pretty succinct in his statements, noting that the Tesla Model S “looks like a vehicle that I would own.” And also: “I’m waiting for somebody to have a vehicle like that that I could own.”

So … more exactly and in Nick’s words, what’s the issue? The issue is that SolarCity is “vocal and antagonistic” on net metering issues, and also “very aggressive.”

“Tesla’s a great car, but I don’t think I’m in the position to support them right now. I’m looking at everything from the Chevy Volt to the BMW i8. So I gotta figure that out.”

What a dilemma (as far as dilemmas of rich people go). The Chevy Volt is of course quite a nice car in its own right … so that would be my recommendation.