Typically, I'm not allowed to discuss a huge majority of the work that I do at Tesla, especially when it comes to policy. Yet, since this was a public filing, I am allowed to talk about it and the ways in which it was extremely insightful.
This task came my way in my first two weeks of my internship. It almost felt like being thrown into a ring of lions, only because it seemed too important and official for an intern like me to take on. The gist of it was that the British Columbia government put out a lengthy proposal on a Zero-Emission Vehicle Sales Target, but specifically for medium and heavy duty vehicles (trucks, etc). One of Tesla's products, the Semi truck, would be subject to such legislation in Canada (once it enters the Canadian market). The way it usually works is that before a piece of legislation is enforced or introduced, a proposal is released to give the chance for, in this case, automakers, to give feedback with extensive reasonings on why any part of the legislation should be reconsidered/improved or made more flexible.
My task consisted of taking a deep dive into the proposal, understand it quite well, and predict how it would affect Tesla. These steps were extremely important for us to develop a response to it. This proposed legislation was extremely similar to two legislations that were passed in California: Advanced Clean Transportation and Advanced Clean Fleets. I had to understand them pretty well, which involved a lot of research and analysis, especially in making sense of how Tesla responded to them. I found all the content I was interacting with quite complex. Even though I felt like my Economics classes, for example, gave me a basic understanding of how policy is developed and implemented, this task highlighted how much more there was for me to learn (so much!). While I felt I was a big contributor to this task, it couldn't have been done without the expertise of many on the team. I had so many questions as I was making sense of every intricacy of this legislation, and all my co-workers were so responsive and helpful.
After all my research and analysis was compiled, I started aiding in the drafting process. I was a big part of both the drafting and editing process, maybe even a bigger part of editing. After cycling through many versions of the response, it was submitted! It was extremely cool to be part of that process so early on in my internship.
-Even though I have interacted with legislation at my previous job, I never took the plunge to analyze it and its effects on industry.
-I truly believe that constant questioning of the content was one of the important factors that solidified my understanding the proposal. Asking a lot of questions still remains my specialty, I'll never stop.
- This task was quite sobering. I mean it in the way how I felt like I was too sucked into academia for the many months before this internship. While I think my courses have always given me a strong foundation in economics and policy development, it was this task that reinforced the thought that there's quite the gap between the models I see in class and how things actually play out in the world. That's not a complete shocker, but I think now that I can say that I've responded to legislative proposals, I'll take on all of my future policy-related courses in a different light.