Elon Musk as Orren Boyle
This is what happens when government gives a "visionary" company subsidies and tax breaks in return for promises of job growth and revenue.
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While we're very happy to have you in the Gulch and appreciate your wanting to fully engage, some things in the Gulch (e.g. voting, links in comments) are a privilege, not a right. To get you up to speed as quickly as possible, we've provided two options for earning these privileges.
Second, while the idea of EVs is not evil, building them now (as production models, not just prototypes) is waste to the point of idiocy -- because if you consider their entire life cycle including manufacturing, no EV has yet achieved either energy or money break-even. What's more, the cheapest Tesla, even after the subsidy, costs over $60k. We should not be subsidizing anybody who is in a position to spend $60k for a car.
Third, subsidies and utilities with controlled prices are evil, and using the excuse that "the neighbors did it too" is pathetic. And trade imbalances don't matter. If there aren't enough jobs in the US it's not foreigners' fault; it's because the US is taxing and regulating job creators to death. To fix it we've either got to make them stop, or go off-the-books and defy them.
Those rural people put food on your plate without it costing you $100 for an ear of corn on the cob. I would recommend you treat them with more respect, considering they also put conservatives in office, because if you live in the urban centers that you seem to think are the only elitists deserving of convenient access to air travel, you would certainly be in shackles by now with the types they would elect if unchecked.
And what the fuck is up with accusing me of having any "connection" or whatever. I don't, I just happen to be very well-read. I do the research, unlike most here, which blindly parrot some quotes out of Atlas Shrugged and assume it as fact.
The only challenge Nikola has to deal with is the hydrogen distribution, but they are doing it the right way, with 1500 mile ranges, the distribution gets pretty easy because you don't need one on every street corner. Especially if you can ultimately plug the thing in and get a 100 miles down the road after a few hours of charging, I suspect they will do fine. Electric motors have gobs of torque and towing power compared to gas or diesel, it's not even a close horse race.
So when is Musk paying back the loot to the taxpayers?
Has GM paid back their bailout yet? ;^)
Energy and Infrastructure is really hard, investors are always wary of returns, it takes longer to develop new oil reserves than 2 or 3 business cycles will last.
Public money has unfortunately always been ears-deep in this stuff.
To answer your question about Tesla - Actually, I think they would do ok without the subsidies, they don't have any problem raising capital and it would really only force them to license some intellectual property. I understand Elon's disinterest in doing that, because they are so far ahead than other car companies -not only on the EV thing, but on battery technology, self-driving, the "summon" thing that pulls the car out of the garage or valet on it's own, etc.
Ask ourselves how many tractor-trailer drivers are going to stick with $3.00 / gallon diesel fuel, and probably $200k a year in fuel expenses, versus switching to Nikola fuel-cells with 3x more torque, double the towing capacity, and keeping up with 65 mph traffic on steep grades instead of driving 25 mph for hours. My guess is, quite a few of them will. Tesla is way ahead on batteries, and Nikola (the truck guys) are going to buy their batteries from Tesla. The Fuel Cells are great for long duration, but they still need a big battery as a capacitor to moderate the output. Between the two, that's about a 1500 mile range on 10 cent a gallon hydrogen.
How many vehicles on the road are big rigs? Quite a few of them actually... and most of them are pretty old. $200k in fuel savings equals a lot of room to finance a replacement with.
YOU respond:"because you don't have a choice with the others, those are ok to not criticize as well"
Your conclusion has no basis in anything I have written. You want to discuss Chevy and GM feeding at the trough, start a thread and post some links to supporting data. GM has been at the trough feeding right alongside Musk at the taxpayers expense. GM was roasted for their bailout and Musk gets a pass ? Rubbish.
Incidentally, Chevrolet has sold far more Chevy Volts than Tesla has sold - almost more annually than the total Musk has sold in several years of Model S production. Chevy gets the same $7500 tax credit. Just saying.
Seems like Boise and CDA had more of the subdivision stuff. I'm open to suggestions, spent a couple of days in Boise and Mountain Home as well, just like all the valleys around Pocatello. Sun Valley seemed very lefty.
Glenn Beck has always had some less-than-baked opinions.
The system existed long before Elon Musk came along, he's just very good at pulling every lever.
You are just kind of falling for the wrong narrative. Teslas are not built with United Auto Worker labor, soo....
Sure they got a dilapidated plant in the Bay Area from Toyota/GM for cheap, but they were never going to make $15k Matrix minivans there again where the cost of living demanded at least $80k a year per worker. It was home plate for Tesla, Pontiac went bye-bye and Toyota didn't care - just moved to a cheaper state. Tesla taking it over meant no hazmat for the taxpayers to clean up.
I favor free markets and individual liberty. Musk and his looting is the topic of discussion. His looting is not defensible because others do the same.
So by your reasoning, Tesla is great for taking from the taxpayers and so are all the other looters. It's just a hidden cost to all the customers because customers might not continue to use the same amount (or buy the car) if they could see the real price of what they are buying. Better not let them know, and government can act as the conduit for the cost, after taking out their sizable graft.
I'd rather see Tesla compete in the free market without stealing from the taxpayers to line his pockets.
Better political climate than I have been trapped in as well for the last 20 years... California used to be rather politically conservative, and if you look at it on a map, 90% of it is very, very deep red. We just can't overcome the lefties in LA, Sacramento, and San Francisco though.
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