Noted carmaker Aston Martin has found itself in a climate lobbying controversy, following the spread of an anti-EV study which peddled the idea that electric cars will have to travel as far as 50,000 miles before matching the carbon footprint of a comparable fossil fuel-powered vehicle. Needless to say, the controversy, which is now being dubbed in EV circles as #Astongate, is crumbling down, and it seems to be dragging Aston Martin’s name with it.
The report, titled “Decarbonising Road Transport: There Is No Silver Bullet,” made the rounds in several key media outlets last week, with agencies such as The Times and the The Daily Telegraph reporting on its alleged findings. The findings of the study promptly drew raised eyebrows from EV authorities online, most especially Auke Hoekstra, Senior Advisor on Electric Mobility at the Eindhoven Technical University, who is known for debunking anti-electric car narratives. It didn’t take long before the study was thoroughly debunked.
But the story only got stranger from there.
Electric vehicle experts and researchers opted to trace the source of the study, and what they found was quite interesting. As it turned out, the study was commissioned by companies including Aston Martin, Bosch, Honda, and McLaren. The study was presented as the work of a firm called Clarendon Communications, and it was commissioned shortly after UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called for a ban on the sale of new fossil fuel-powered vehicles from 2030.
Interestingly enough, the communications firm behind the report, Clarendon Communications, was registered under the name of Rebecca Stephen, a part-time NHS nurse and the spouse of Aston Martin’s government affairs director, James Stephen. The PR firm was set up only this February, and it is registered to the address of a property jointly owned by the couple.
In an email to The Guardian, Rebecca Stephen stated that the report from Clarendon was “compiled” by the same companies that commissioned the study itself. According to Stephen, Clarendon was contacted by Bosch “to provide public affairs and stakeholder support” so its logo and contact details appear on the back of the report “for this purpose.” Bosch, for its part, noted via a spokeswoman that it fully supports the report. The company also called for “greater transparency” on the carbon footprint of vehicles.
As the “Astongate” controversy emerges, Labour MP Matt Western, who wrote the foreword to the Clarendon Communications report, expressed his disdain that the study was used as part of an anti-EV narrative. According to Western, he agreed to be part of the project to “push this agenda forward, rather than the opposite.” “I am disappointed that the report has since been used to push an anti-electrification line in the media. I was not aware of any link between the PR firm involved and Aston Martin,” he said.
As for Francis Ingham, the director-general of the Public Relations and Communications Association, he noted that PR agencies such as Clarendon must fight misinformation, not spread it. “We have a duty to fight misinformation, not purvey it. PR agencies should be fully transparent about who they represent. Failure to disclose client relationships damages trust in our industry and lends credence to misleading perceptions of PR as a sinister practice,” Ingham said.
Amidst the shift of the auto industry towards electric vehicles, Aston Martin is among those that are being left behind. The company has canceled its RapidE electric vehicle and is currently not promising anything electric until 2026. The company has handed a fifth of its equity to Mercedes-Benz in exchange for access to the German luxury automaker’s hybrid and EV tech.
Tesla has expanded its branded ‘For Business’ Supercharger program that it launched last year, as yet another company is using the platform to attract EV owners to its business and utilize a unique advertising opportunity.
Francis Energy of Oklahoma is launching four Superchargers in Norman, where the University of Oklahoma is located. The Superchargers, which are fitted with branding for Francis Energy, will officially open tomorrow.
It will not be the final Supercharger location that Francis Energy plans to open, the company confirmed to EVWire.
Back in early September, Tesla launched the new “Supercharger for Business” program in an effort to give businesses the ability to offer EV charging at custom rates. It would give their businesses visibility and would also cater to employees or customers.
“Purchase and install Superchargers at your business,” Tesla wrote on a page on its website for the new program. “Superchargers are compatible with all electric vehicles, bringing EV drivers to your business by offering convenient, reliable charging.”
The first site opened in Land O’ Lakes, Florida, which is Northeast of Tampa, as a company called Suncoast launched the Superchargers for local EV owners.
Tesla launches its new branded Supercharger for Business with first active station
The program also does a great job at expanding infrastructure for EV owners, which is something that needs to be done to encourage more people to purchase Teslas and other electric cars.
Francis Energy operates at least 14 EV charging locations in Oklahoma, spanning from Durant to Oklahoma City and nearly everywhere in between. Filings from the company, listed by Supercharge.info, show the company’s plans to convert some of them to Tesla Superchargers, potentially utilizing the new Supercharger for Business program to advertise.
Moving forward, more companies will likely utilize Tesla’s Supercharger for Business program as it presents major advantages in a variety of ways, especially with advertising and creating a place for EV drivers to gain range in their cars.
Tesla Cybercab is perhaps the most highly-anticipated project that the company plans to roll out this year, and as it is undergoing its testing phase in pre-production currently, there are some things to work through with it.
Over the weekend, an image of the Cybercab being loaded onto a tow truck started circulating on the internet, and people began to speculate as to what the issue could be.
Hmmmmmm… https://t.co/L5hWcOXQkb pic.twitter.com/OJBDyHNTMj
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) January 11, 2026
The Cybercab can clearly be seen with a Police Officer and perhaps the tow truck driver by its side, being loaded onto, or even potentially unloaded from, the truck.
However, it seems unlikely it was being offloaded, as its operation would get it to this point for testing to begin with.
It appears, at first glance, that it needs assistance getting back to wherever it came from; likely Gigafactory Texas or potentially a Bay Area facility.
The Cybercab was also spotted in Buffalo, New York, last week, potentially undergoing cold-weather testing, but it doesn’t appear that’s where this incident took place.
It is important to remember that the Cybercab is currently undergoing some rigorous testing scenarios, which include range tests and routine public road operation. These things help Tesla assess any potential issue the vehicle could run into after it starts routine production and heads to customers, or for the Robotaxi platform operation.
This is not a one-off issue, either. Tesla had some instances with the Semi where it was seen broken down on the side of a highway three years ago. The all-electric Semi has gone on to be successful in its early pilot program, as companies like Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. have had very positive remarks.
The Cybercab’s future is bright, and it is important to note that no vehicle model has ever gone its full life without a breakdown. It happens, it’s a car.
Nevertheless, it is important to note that there has been no official word on what happened with this particular Cybercab unit, but it is crucial to remember that this is the pre-production testing phase, and these things are more constructive than anything.
Tesla analyst Andrew Percoco of Morgan Stanley teased the company’s dominance in its self-driving initiative, stating that its lead over competitors is “not even close.”
Percoco recently overtook coverage of Tesla stock from Adam Jonas, who had covered the company at Morgan Stanley for years. Percoco is handling Tesla now that Jonas is covering embodied AI stocks and no longer automotive.
His first move after grabbing coverage was to adjust the price target from $410 to $425, as well as the rating from ‘Overweight’ to ‘Equal Weight.’
Percoco’s new note regarding Tesla highlights the company’s extensive lead in self-driving and autonomy projects, something that it has plenty of competition in, but has established its prowess over the past few years.
He writes:
“It’s not even close. Tesla continues to lead in autonomous driving, even as Nvidia rolls out new technology aimed at helping other automakers build driverless systems.”
Percoco’s main point regarding Tesla’s advantage is the company’s ability to collect large amounts of training data through its massive fleet, as millions of cars are driving throughout the world and gathering millions of miles of vehicle behavior on the road.
This is the main point that Percoco makes regarding Tesla’s lead in the entire autonomy sector: data is King, and Tesla has the most of it.
One big story that has hit the news over the past week is that of NVIDIA and its own self-driving suite, called Alpamayo. NVIDIA launched this open-source AI program last week, but it differs from Tesla’s in a significant fashion, especially from a hardware perspective, as it plans to use a combination of LiDAR, Radar, and Vision (Cameras) to operate.
Percoco said that NVIDIA’s announcement does not impact Morgan Stanley’s long-term opinions on Tesla and its strength or prowess in self-driving.
NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang commends Tesla’s Elon Musk for early belief
And, for what it’s worth, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang even said some remarkable things about Tesla following the launch of Alpamayo:
“I think the Tesla stack is the most advanced autonomous vehicle stack in the world. I’m fairly certain they were already using end-to-end AI. Whether their AI did reasoning or not is somewhat secondary to that first part.”
Percoco reiterated both the $425 price target and the ‘Equal Weight’ rating on Tesla shares.
Tesla expands its branded ‘For Business’ Superchargers
Tesla Cybercab ‘breakdown’ image likely is not what it seems
