Key Points
- Michigan’s Attorney General has filed an antitrust lawsuit against four major oil companies.
- The suit alleges a decades-long conspiracy to stifle competition from renewable energy and EVs.
- It claims the companies acted “as a cartel” to protect their profits.
- The lawsuit cites Exxon’s decision not to market its early hybrid vehicle technology as a key example.
Michigan’s Attorney General, Dana Nessel, has filed a major antitrust lawsuit against four of the world’s biggest oil companies, accusing them of colluding for decades to stifle competition from renewable energy and electric vehicles. The lawsuit, filed on Friday, names BP, Chevron, Exxon, and Shell, as well as the industry’s main trade group, the American Petroleum Institute.
The complaint alleges that these companies acted “as a cartel,” agreeing to hold back the development of renewable energy and electric vehicles to protect their own profits. “This lawsuit also ignores the fact that Michigan is highly dependent on oil and gas to support the state’s automakers and workers,” a lawyer for Chevron said in a statement, calling the lawsuit “baseless.”
The lawsuit lays out a long history of alleged anti-competitive behavior. It claims the companies abandoned promising renewable energy projects, used patent litigation to block rivals, and suppressed information about the true costs of fossil fuels.
One of the most striking examples cited in the suit is Exxon’s development of the first hybrid gas-electric vehicle technologies back in the 1970s. The company even partnered with Toyota on a hybrid car project, but “never marketed that innovative hybrid engine technology.” The lawsuit says Exxon’s own internal research in 1979 predicted that renewable energy would become a “competitive threat.”
The suit also accuses Chevron of acquiring patents for a key EV battery technology just to restrict their use in cars.
This is not the first time Big Oil has been sued over its role in climate change. Still, this new lawsuit’s focus on antitrust and the suppression of renewable energy technology is a powerful legal strategy. The case comes as the Trump administration has been rolling back policies that encourage EV adoption.
