When Tesla’s license plates were stopped at Postnord during the ongoing blockade, the electric car manufacturer instead ordered new replacement plates from the Swedish Transport Administration – which were then delivered directly to customers and not blocked like Tesla’s other mail.
– It is not very common to order replacement plates for a newly registered car. We don’t normally see this kind of order. It is not an overly bold assumption to make that it has something to do with the blockade, Mikael Andersson, press officer at the Swedish Transport Administration, tells trade magazine Arbetsvärlden.
When a car is registered by a company in Sweden, it is given a license plate number and an automatic order for license plates is placed with the plate manufacturer – these are then sent via Postnord to the car company that installs them, the newspaper writes.
If the plates are stolen or damaged in an accident, replacement plates can be ordered and delivered directly to the car owner’s home – but now Tesla has started using this method on a large scale to circumvent Postnord’s blockade.
Trade union critical
“On Thursday, Tesla began registering changes of ownership from Tesla Motors Sweden to car buyers for the approximately 900 cars registered on December 6 and 7. As of Friday, 145 cars had changed hands. Of these, the change of ownership was immediately followed by replacement license plate orders for 140 of them. All but three of the orders for replacement plates were made by Tesla Motors Sweden itself, according to checks by the Swedish Transport Administration”, they write.
The union ST criticizes the action and says that Tesla should “sit down at the negotiating table” instead of “fighting union activities and hiring scabs”. Tesla itself will not comment on its new practices.
IF Metall’s strike and other unions’ blockades and other sympathetic actions against Tesla have led to a heated debate in Swedish society, with one side arguing that it is harmful and dangerous in the long run if Tesla does not sign collective agreements and adapt to the “Swedish model” – while the other side argues that collective agreements are voluntary and that it is not reasonable for unions to fight a single company in this way.
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