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Should Taxpayers Back Cars Only the Rich Can Afford?
theodp writes "The NY Times questions the $400M in low-interest federal loans requested by Tesla Motors as part of the $25B loan package for the auto industry passed by Congress last year. 'The program is intended to encourage automakers to improve fuel efficiency, but should it be used for a purpose like this, as the 2008 Bailout of Very, Very High-Net-Worth Individuals Who Invested in Tesla Motors Act?' Tesla says it is assembling about 15 cars a week and has delivered about 80 of its $109,000 base-price Roadsters to date, many of which have gone to the Valley's billionaires and centimillionaires who are Tesla investors as well as early customers. We discussed the company's financial difficulties last month."
Let the market decide, not a group of politicians paid off by lobbyists from the money they're lobbying to get.
unless there are stipulations placed on the money - tesla is forced to produce a car that is sub $25,000...
dumber people are doing harder things everyday
That os nothing...
Here in Lebanon (Middle East), The Members of Parlament are exempt from the 40% import tax on cars and private jets.
Talk about corruption...
We shouldn't be bailing any of them out.
"Ubuntu" -- an African word, meaning "Slackware is too hard for me". - stolen from Dan C alt.os.linux.slackware
Tesla's request was so they could design and build a much cheaper electric family sedan; i personally believe that it is a good investment even if the car costs 50k.
It seems unlikely that tesla will mass produce a car, but it does seem likely that they will be gobbled up by a larger company that will.
It would be money well spent
In this case: Yes.
I wouldn't view it as just subsidy for an automaker in this case. But a special kind of research fund.
Who else is going to improve the technology? If it was one of the companies already in the industry, it'd be done by now. Don't give the entrenched guys anything. Give it to new companies.
Just because the rich get it first doesn't mean we won't get it, too. Look down at the device under your hands as you flame me for proof.
Tesla has a good business plan: Use the large margin on an electric supercar to subsidize the development of the foundational components for modern electric cars. The big 3 are failed dinosarus. I'd rather see billion dollar bailouts go to companies like Tesla, that gave a real plan for the future, than GM and Ford who will piss it away building hybrid SUV monsters.
Tesla may not sell cars that everyone can afford today, but just by making cars, they are assumedly building on their ability to lower prices in the future.
As long as the money goes toward R&D, it's an investment in our future which I would support even if the other Big 3 were't going bankrupt.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
It will trickle down to us single-digit millionaires eventually. Who really cares about the scum who don't have a million yet? I'll personally trickle a yellow golden shower their way if the insist.
We should raise the gas taxes. This will keep money in the US instead of foreign government hands, help the budget problems, reduce global warming, lower oil prices, and weaken our enemies. Then we can afford to boost companies like Tesla, who will eventually make cars for everyone, if they survive.
The government already gives my money to crack whores.....
If more capital helps them ramp up production and get more exposure I'm all for it. Better than a new hummer or F150 I suppose. Economy of scale will hopefully drive down the price. One of Tesla's pr folks was on NPR saying just that, if they had GM's facilities the prices wouldn't be so high.
To say that a low interest loan to Tesla is a bailout for billionaires is to seriously ignore what Tesla is doing. While everyone else is either developing low-speed electric cars (e.g. cars that can't run on the highway and don't have to pass all of the safety regulations) or estimating that their electric hybrid will run AT MOST 40 miles off the battery, Tesla has developed the first practical all electric car that can run 200 plus miles on a charge using (mostly) existing technology. You know, something that the big three for the last 20 years has said couldn't be done.
In addition, Tesla is continuing to work to engineer a pure electric car for the masses. This is where most of the money would be applied. It's not to bail out the roadsters already being built/already on order.
Plus, the established auto makers research is primarily still into improving ICEs, which is inherently, horribly inefficient. We've had over a hundred years of research and development into improving the ICE and it's still AT BEST only 25% efficient. We don't need any more ICE development, thank you very much. Considering that the Tesla roadster gets 4 times the fuel efficiency as the best ICE, the money would be applied exactly as it is intended (something that would probably not be the case for GM and company).
Lastly, if we're talking about bailouts, why should taxpayers bail out the Big Three? Their officers are responsible for pitifully shortsighted business decisions for the last 30 years, culminating in the current state of the US auto industry. If we reward businesses for bad business decisions, what's the incentive to do better? Let them be bought out by Toyota, et al. Good riddance, I say.
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
Should taxpayers back car makers first of all. Propping up failing industries with cash is like trying to fight gravity by throwing things up in the air. Should productive people pay for the calamitous ruin produced by government backed union thugs? So politicians bought michigan votes and now it's time to pay, only the payers will be the people living in the US. Uh uh.
Should we pay for the cars of the wealthy... ooooooh the wealthy. Yeah right, this is about the wealthy. Wait, no. Actually this is about the fucking Marxists who believe in unions, who believe in a socialized banking system.
Taxpayer should not back anything, and that includes the most bankrupt and morally corrupt company of all, the US government. Who will bail out the US government? Ponder this.
\u262D = \u5350
We shouldn't be bailing out any of the automakers, but since we are wasting the money anyway, I would greatly prefer the money to go to companies with *vision* rather than to companies that will waste the money making hybrid SUVs.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Well since the top 5% pay %80 of the taxes - they are really just getting their money back.
many of which have gone to the Valley's billionaires and centimillionaires
Usually, a centimillionaire only has enough cash to buy a used car. Making this high-end car available to these people sounds like a huge benefit to me.
Tesla is asking for a loan, which means it will be payed back, I have a few fedaral loans and no one gives me grief or calls it a hand-out. They just nod and say, "yeah, I have student loan payments too." second, Tesla makes electric cars using rather advanced battery systems to get a theorectical 200 miles per charge and something more like 100 miles per charge if you believe Jason Calacanis. So if you can accept that "improve(ing) fuel efficency" is the same as using new technology to make an electric car that people want, then giving a loan to Tesla seems to fit the criteria for this $25B loan package. I hear Tesla is also working on cars for regular people, so why not? They are making a product that people want, and if they succeed in making a car affordable to the masses then they will succeed in increasing fuel efficiency.
Subject says it all, no bailouts for any of them.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
Seriously, folks - this has less to do with protecting the Rolls Royces of this world, and more to do with encouraging alternate means of locomotion.
Where would you rather give your money (if you're a US taxpayer, it is your money)... to a bunch of failing and backwards-looking automaking corps, or to a young and hungry company that is looking to change the very way we fuel up our cars?
Forget the politics - the Big Three are in thrall to a wage and compensation plan that is simply unsustainable and way above market value, no matter how the mathematics are applied. Not blaming the unions per se (the corps agreed to it, after all) but seriously - add it up yourself.
Coupled with the dragging and tooth-pulling required to get the likes of GM and Ford to go all-alternative (or to even jack up the fuel efficiency to something near what the competition has right now)? Why bother? They'll simply make a lot of noises about having changed their ways, and 10 years later they'll be right back in Congress again, begging for more money.
This may sound trollish, but screw that - let the innovators of this world get a leg-up, if we're going to be throwing around money in the first place. Let the collapse of the Big Three be an object lesson to those who think they're somehow entitled to continued existence just because they happen to be a big corporation.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If Tesla is the only one out there willing to try out actually selling fully electric cars (as opposed to leasing them with no right for the lessee to buy the car afterward), then I think an investment in them is a good investment in finding out how well battery technology really works in automotive applications in the real world. Consider the following quote from the article: "BMW believes that current technologies used in the all-electric vehicles have not been tested enough in real conditions to be ready to be sold to the public. It will begin by leasing for one year a fleet of 500 Mini E's for $850 a month each. At the end of the lease term, the cars will be returned to BMW for testing." Those are some awfully expensive experimental cars that the lessees can't even buy afterward. Tesla's ahead of the rest of the industry in this area, and how their cars perform in the real world over time will teach the rest of the industry a lot about electric cars.
Should taxpayers back space stations only the rich can afford to visit?
I agree completely.
The best way to develop the technology and bring the cost down to something affordable is to have it in production. And right now Telsa is producing 15 MORE zero emission cars a week than all of the Detroit automakers combined.
We need to support every reasonable alternative to oil. Yes the prototypes are expensive but in the long run the benefits will be shared by all. We have paid 2 trillion dollars in Iraq to subsidize oil and destroy our standing in the world why not try a different approach? We pay soldiers to stand guard over oil and gas fields & lines all over the world, think how much we could save if we got away from all this military waste?
If they need money, they can SELL me a car. A good car, that I can afford.
What is this nonsense about throwing money we don't have at problems that aren't ours?
What's next? The Ferrari bailout?
The $25 billion from this program is supposed to be used to get real technology on the roads. Companies can use the grants and loans to "re-equip, expand, and establish manufacturing facilities in the U.S. to produce light-duty vehicles and components that make meaningful improvements in fuel economy performance."
My understanding is that Tesla applied for somewhere around $400 million to help finance their Model S sedan: all-electric, 200+ miles per charge, $60k base price (I assume a real price closer to $70-75k). Each new generation lowers the cost of electric cars and Tesla would be building up the valuable knowlege needed for a true consumer car while at the same time expanding it's manufacturing capabilities. In short, if Tesla gets the Model S on the road, it will have gone much further than any other car company in getting electric cars on the road in the US.
This is investment money and was designed as such. The real danger in my mind would be if Congress decided to take these funds and turn it into a Big 3 bailout. That would significantly set back the plans to get new generations of energy-efficient cars on the road.
I'm fed up with stuff like this...even bigger class divide, the poor always seem to suffer even more.
http://nathanlindsell.blogspot.com/
Any new technology is initially going to be affordable only by the wealthy. If we say we are not going to subsidize R&D for products for the wealthy, we are saying we are not going to subsidize R&D at all.
Tesla. Bought or cornered by nissan in the upcoming months. You'll see.
I was all in favor of giving hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to poor impoverished bankers and investment brokers, but I didn't expect anything like this!
A similar question could be asked about computers, in the 1950's. Electric cars are very likely something that will be needed in the future. The more that gets done on them now, the cheaper they will be in the future. These first few cars will be expensive, yes, but that goes for most prototype cars.
Why does it cost Tesla $200 million to bring ONE car to market?
Corrolary: why is the Tesla Roadster 10% heavier than originally designed?
Why does it cost GM billions to survive?
Corrolary: why do cars look increasingly alike?
Answer: government regulations dictating design of everything right down to the armrests, not to mention buttloads of useless safety gear (are cars *really* safer now than 10 years ago?). We've made the barrier to entry way too high that you simply can't have a small automotive startup.
If you really want to spur the industry to life you'd start repealing car design legislation.
The secondary advantage is you'd no longer be dependent on companies "too big to fail".
I'm far more unhappy about the hundreds of billions being given to financial corporations on Wall Street. Those were deliberately run into the ground by obviously unsound economic practices. Loaning money to manufacturing companies makes better sense since the money will be spent making stuff, employing people who will thereby be able to afford food, houses and paying taxes.
As for lending money to Tesla -- they are developing the sort of huge, advanced battery design we'll need for all-electric or plug-in hybrid cars. Investing in Tesla sounds like an investment into raw research, something that not done enough in America.
If you don't like it, vote against it.
A centimillion only buys one decitesla. I suspect the editors were referring to hectomillionaries, though with the recent gyrations in the market some of them may have dropped an exponent or two.
Either we nationalize the company or nothing. Think about it for a minute. When you loan someone money at a low interest rate, they get almost all the upside and none of the downside. If Tesla goes bankrupt, what are we left with? Nothing. If Tesla does well, what do we get? Low interest payments. We the taxpayers are bearing the risks, not Tesla or its investors. If they want us to bear the risks, then we must get a share of the prize. Then we should buy preferred shares from Tesla.
Personally, I'm against both. The US government should not be in the business of making loans. Under what criteria does the government give out loans? Who qualifies? Why shouldn't we give the low interest loans to our students to go to college? What about mom and pop stores? What about Toyota and BMW? These questions are normally answered by the lenders and judged on the merit of the borrower's business proposal.
EvilCON - Made Famous by
OK, so electric cars are not going to save the planet as long as the electricity still comes from fossil fuels.
However, at least Tesla seem to have a business model which involves inventing new stuff, manufacturing it and selling it to customers. Frankly, I find subsidizing them far less offensive than spending trillions bailing out the banking industry after their self-serving little pyramid scheme went titsup.
(Disclaimer: I'm in the UK so I won't be subsidizing Tesla - wish I could say the same for the banking industry).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
That's a lot of cash for a startup. I doubt they're good for the money. So, no bailout.
Why not repeal the subsidies to oil companies? Some direct, some indirect. That would level the playing field, stop skewing the market and then we would see where alts to oil stand in terms of economics. Then a decision on what to do about alt energy and transport will be easier to make.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/3/6/122829/2907
http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_vehicles/vehicle_impacts/cars_pickups_and_suvs/subsidizing-big-oil.html
http://cleantech.com/news/node/554
http://www.commondreams.org/news2008/0401-12.htm
http://www.progress.org/2003/energy22.htm
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Tesla is the tip of the iceberg. The big traditional car companies should have made the transition to new technologies and electric cars long time ago. For some reason it did not happen. At the time of handing out taxpayers bailout, would be a perfect occasion to start a congressional hearing to find out why all this did not happen. This would be the perfect time to find out if there were any conspiracies, collusion with the oil industry, killing innovations which could have made difference.
This would be a good time to find out why the car industry did not make the changes which would have avoided to find themselves where they are now. Maybe it's also the time to name names and make changes to legislation that would avoid to get into the same situation and to create a system where people in charge of making critical mistakes for any reason can be charged.
In order to drive society forward, you must back the people who are capable of doing so. Given that society often requires money in great quantities before it can advance, there really is no other choice: you must back those who have become capable of doing what needs to be done. Backing those who cannot make a difference is doomed to fail, so the best you can hope for is to back those who can.
Isn't most of the tax income coming from the top 1% anyway?
You can't build any purely electric car with a decent range without putting $30,000 worth of batteries in it. So Joe Sixpack isn't going to be able to afford it no matter what you do. If your going to spend money, spend it either on making cheaper hybrids, or on basic battery research. Plug in hybrids are what we need right now, but no major auto company will have them available for sale until 2010. Excellent planning, dudes!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I thought the whole bailout (not the one for the car industry, but rather about credit) was about liquidity. As anyone in the business world can tell you, liquidity problems can sink the best companies. In other words: You can have the best business idea ever, but if no one wants to invest in it you won't be able to make money. Same can happen down the line. If you have all you money invested, for example in machines, because demand is so high, and then one of you customers pays his bills late you could go belly up very fast.
Some banks even pull that on you in normal times. Maybe because they think they can make more money by selling your assets than by waiting for interest to come.
Now because nobody trusts anybody anymore in the credit industry liquidity has dried up. Many good businesses could fail because they are unable to borrow money. If one of their customers pays late ...
Tesla says they have orders for years to come. Maybe they have a very sound business, but still have problems getting money because of the banks.
Unlike in economics, in technology, there IS an observable trickle-down effect. Investment in a high-tech ground-breaking company makes a lot more sense than keeping broken-down old GM creeping along.
Yes, the USA should invest in manufacturing and in particular, manufacturing for better technologies, and at a national level. It benefits the workers, it benefits the rich, it benefits a country whose sense of well being is made by being self sufficient in both the goods it produces and energy that it uses.
It's easy to demonize the rich, but history suggests caution. In 1993, as part of the Clinton economic recovery plan, Democrats raised taxes on luxury items. What they discovered is that they threw out of work quite a number of not-so-rich custom craftsmen, artists and workers that did things like make $2000 end tables, boats, and jewelry. Woops. The luxury tax was quickly repealed but the symbol of the small business owning craftsmen going belly up inspired middle America to elect Republicans in droves in 1994.
The whole "bailout" for car manufacturers is about retaining the skill among the workforce to create manufactured products. Clearly, Tesla is forging ahead and trying to build all electric cars. While only the rich can afford them now, if they are successful, perhaps other people will too in the future. I know Elon Musk is a self promoting douche, but, he is building the damn car and I bet he's got a lot of good people working for him.
I think the bank bailouts are far worse than any detroit bailout. Has anyone else ever bothered to total up the cost of the bailouts to banks versus the cost of the mortgages actually supposedly bad? You'll not be too surprised to find that we've already written out enough money to buy -all- of the subprime mortgages....but, why is anyone being foreclosed on?
This is my sig.
Some top charities in 2007:
Salvation Army. Highest salary $187,482. Revenue that goes to charitable services 83%
Nature Conservancy. Highest salary $406,933. Revenue that goes to charitable services 78%
Some top charities in 2008:
Citigroup. Highest salary $14.4M. Revenue that goes to charitable services 0%.
AIG. Highest salary $7.66M. Revenue that goes to charitable services 0%.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Tesla is asking for a loan, which means it will be payed back,
While I agree with the overall concept that it's important to distinguish between a loan and a give-away, this statement should be "...which means that they claim that they will pay it back."
The whole genesis of the financial crisis is that it turns out that it's not true that all loans are paid back.
The whole bailout issue is like a chain of dominoes; where is it supposed to stop? It's certainly not fair to "bail out" the bad performers and not the good performers, but if you then go and bail out the good performers as well, where does it end?
But, with that said, I'm a lot happier with a government loan to Tesla, which is actually making electric cars, than to GM, which made electric cars once but decided to abandon the technology with extreme prejudice, going out of their way to make sure that every single one of their electric cars was pounded into scrap metal and melted down.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Some figures....
Average cost to fund bailout per capita: $80.
Amount of cars you could buy at $20k a car: 1.25 million.
Of course you could make those numbers smaller and larger...
I'd say detroit lost the game some time ago, but there is something to be said about having our car manufacturing capacity reduced to completely foreign interests. Would Honda help us make tanks? Some people don't see the greater sense of scale in the collapse of the american industrial complex. The rustbelt of america slowly spreads leaving burned out factory carcasses in its wake. Sure our gdp and manufacturing stats put us at a respectable number one, but still, that is certainly fading fast, with the EU already out producing the united states.
zosxavius photography
Do you mean that you're too smart and awesome to explain your moral philosophy to us lowly peasants? Or are you trying to say that your morals are based on articles of faith that have no rational basis?
Self sufficiency and nationalism are the fundamental conservative values. I can't see how you can advocate letting the USA's manufacturing capability go belly up in the interest of a foolish marriage to the ideas of a free trade.
Do you seriously think that, a Japanese car worker has more culturally in common with you than a liberal American? Do you hate unions that much?
I don't. I'd rather be spending my money on the biggest bleeding heart Obama is too conservative supporting liberal than another guy in another country simply because that liberal most likely grew up watching the same shows I did, believes in the same holidays I did, raises his kids the same way I do... politics are only a tiny, tiny slivver of life for most people and when you reject half your country for its politics, its like, chopping off your arm because you don't like the fingernail. I'd be willing to bet that the liberal likes either video games or sports, likes a good novel, a good movie, certain kinds of constructions... there's 10 million points of things in common between Americans conservative and Americans liberal and its only because we've let ourselves get characterized as red and blue that we've lost site of how much in common we have.
I would rather see the USA invest a stake in ALL of the USA car companies than invest it in another bank. Why not? As it stands, the USA is getting handed money by the rest of the world at essentially 3% interest over 30 years. Instead of pissing it away on banks, why not get a big three straightened out, some electric cars and a spaceship.
Look, we're WAY past the point where anyone in any political party seriously believes the government can just keep its hands off the economy and do nothing. Let's at least keep our manufacturing base going, and get our country making for itself again, and in doing so yeah, a few rich people make out, but so do plenty of conservatives that work the shops, liberals the art departments, and every american of every stripe in between.
Are we so dogmatically into capitalism vs socialism that we cannot even see the utility of investing in the economic capability of our own country?
I think we've had ENOUGH of that.
I would think that learning how to assemble complex products, the management and expertise, the experience of the whole process of making cars is just as important as an educational process than spending money on education.
I'm a conservative. I'm a liberal. I'm for the USA first and foremost. Whatever it takes the government to do to get things rolling. Let's get it done.
This is my sig.
Toyota's CEO made less than $1 million in 2005.
The execs at all three of the "big three" made a LOT more than that.
Then they fly in the private jets to lobby for a bailout.
And people are complaining that UNIONS are the "problem"? No. It those execs were actually earning that kind of money (as opposed to just being paid that much) then they would have found a way to be profitable in spite of the unions.
What we're seeing here is the end result of there being no cost for failure. It means that those execs can implement whatever idiot idea comes into their heads. If it works, they get a HUGE bonus. If it fails, the government will bail them out. So we end up with riskier and riskier (and more idiotic) "plans".
Instead, they should have been focusing on the core business. Modernizing their production lines. Improving their systems.
Yet now the discussion is about whether we should reward their behaviour or not.
AIG through a half a million dollar PARTY after their bailout was supported.
We've been through this all before. If you give a million dollars to a millionaire, he's going to spend it differently than if you give a million dollars to a hundred people who only make $10,000.
The question then becomes, if we are giving $X away, what is the BEST segment to give it to in order to boost the economy.
And I do not see how paying someone to fly around in a private jet helps the economy more than giving it directly to the middle class.
I'm sick and fucking tired of this bullshit. These companies should not exist. They have no inherit right to exist.
Time and time again they've shown that they are not capable of adapting to new circumstances - like GM advertising 15MPG SUVs when the price of gas was nearing $5/gallon here in NYC. Adapt or die.
3 Million workers out of a job? So fucking what? What about the 7 million people already on unemployment? How about the millions more on welfare?
Saving these companies - especially these cocksucking executives that run companies into the ground and get huge fucking paydays for it - should bt he least of our priorities.
But what do I matter? Government, politics, and the economy is nothing more than a rich mans game. Fuck 'em all.
I hope that when the poor of this country finally do something about the bullshit the rich pull on them every day, that I get to watch the carnage on TV, masturbating the whole time as the rich soccer moms of the world get raped, tortured, and eventually slaughtered like the animals they truly are.
http://www.autoblog.com/2008/06/30/telsa-confirms-model-s-sedan-225-mile-range-and-60k/
Hey, why let facts get in the way of a good troll?
The price will continue to come down as battery tech improves.
In the mean time Tesla is building their production facility right here in the USA -- which of course is good for the economy.
Jobs.
Green Cars.
Better Economy.
All for the cost of a LOAN.
Come to think of it that wasn't a good piece of trolling. Actually you suck at it.
If a bailout of Automakers is going to happen, then Tesla, as a domestic automaker, should get some part of the package.
They sell cars and hire staff, generating wealth by way of commerce for the nation as a whole. Everyone from UPS drivers to loans officers can be affected by such a downturn, and can be helped if Tesla remains a going concern.
Who they sell to is irrelevant; some day the idea is to sell ordinary folks cars too, but you need to generate some cash to do that. Building cars and selling them to people who can afford them is a pretty good way to do that.
I won't address whether there should be a bailout at all, since it would be off-topic, but I would love to.
Just how many "regular folx" would buy an experimental car anyways? Until it becomes more mainstream, it's automatically a 2nd-3rd-4th car for people anyways, so only the filthy rich can be "early adopters" of car technology... Until Joe Pop garage can service it etc... The real problem is that if their research has values, they should get subsidies(investments in their risk-taking) and not bailout. If they fail, let them fail. That they take out so many with them is part and parcel of the market. The market is designed for largely dependant parts of the market to fail, re-tool, adjust and try again. The pain involved is part of the process.
Hey, I'm a centimillionaire, a multicentimillionaire, in fact, given that "centi" means 1/100th. Perhaps they mean "hectomillionaires".
If you read about fascism from the horse's mouth, you'll see, that there is no difference. Here, I picked the most familiar-sounding items put forth 88 years ago:
Had it not been for Hitler's bizarre obsession with genocide — which, as Franco and Mussolini demonstrated, is not an inalienable part of Fascism — the Left would've considered Hitler as a perfectly respectable source of quotes and inspiration, along with Lenin, Mao, and Karl Marx.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The auto industry bailout if any should be contingent on specific targets for improvement in fleet CO2 emmissions per mile travelled.
Manufacturers should be assisted to the extent that they commit to actual and rapid progress in this direction compared to the current overall US-manufactured car and truck fleet average.
If this were the bailout principle, TESLA would clearly qualify for major support, and the big 3 would qualify to the extent that they commit to shift focus onto accelerating and producing their R&D projects like VOLT and the hydrogen vehicles.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
And if you think we're pissed off now, just imagine what the commentary will be like if we ever get to see Microsoft doing so poorly that they beg for a 20 billion bailout? :)
The same open market that drove the development of the batteries that are currently being used will likely pay for the R&D for the battery technology that winds up winning in the car market.
Lets hear it for capitalism for bringing us this far.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The question of whether taxpayers should back an auto-maker that makes cars for the rich is flawed. To begin with the sole reason for taxpayer bail outs for any company, country or industry is to bail out the financiers who bankroll these companies. Even though the media portrays the company or industry as the entity or group of entities being bailed out, it's the banks that loaned money to these organizations that receive the benefit of bail outs at the taxpayer's expense.
...They don't need to screw around with import taxes like common peasants.
They just raise their own salaries.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Consider that emissions from gasoline cars damage our health and most likely our environment. Then consider the geopolitical mess created by the oil addiction. All of a sudden, a subsidy for electric cars makes a whole lot of sense. Of course, subsidised electric cars should be combined with building environmentally sound powerplants.
Then we, the West, might get somewhere. And hopefully Asia will follow.
Stop the brainwash
Tesla Motors is probably the most important car company we have, since they've stepped up and are trying to make electric cars affordable.
Last I heard, they were working on a sedan. In other words, they don't just develop cars for 'the rich'
Either bail out Tesla Motors or don't bail out any of the car companies. This is a binary decision.
The first sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions was the incident involving Creekstone Farms. In 2004, its management intended to perform mad-cow testing on 100% of the beef that it sold to consumers. Yet, the Bush administration blocked this comprehensive testing, interfering in the private business transaction between a private business and its customers. If a company wants to over-test its product, why does the government have a right to stop such testing?
The second sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions was the incident involving the troubled-asset-relief program (TARP) demanded by the Bush administration and authorized by Congress (at Bush's insistence). TARP is a program for using government money to buy toxic assets (and now to take an equity stake in banks) -- to rescue the people who deliberately and knowingly bought more house than they could afford and to rescue the fast-talking frauds who loaned the money to the house buyers.
The third sign that the words of neoconservatives differ markedly from their actions is the incident involving the allocation of $25 billion in government loans to the car companies. If they cannot build the cars that people want to buy, then they should be allowed to fail. That is how a free market works. The companies go into bankruptcy and possibly shutdown permanently. Why should the free-market advocating neoconservatives try to save these companies?
Why would neoconservatives act in this way? In case #1, the cattle industry regularly makes political donations to neoconservatives. In case #2, the financial industry regularly makes political donations to the neoconservatives. In case #3, the auto industry regularly makes political donations to the neoconservatives.
Case #3 is particularly egregious. Via collective bargaining, auto workers enjoy generous company-funded medical insurance. In order to maintain such private medical benefits, the same auto workers have opposed implementing federally guaranteed medical care (like that in Europe and Japan).
Here's the punch line. Let's condemn the neoconservatives for being liars. Let's condemn the auto workers for being hypocrites. Let's oppose any bailout for the auto companies, forcing them into bankruptcy and forcing millions of auto workers to lose their private medical insurance. The out-of-work auto workers can then "enjoy" the same lack of medical insurance that millions of unemployed workers have enjoyed in the absence of federally guaranteed medical care.
About your sig...
You are aware that implicit statements are a big part of natural communication? If you really want people to take your post by the letter, like your sig implies(sry), you need to use another, non-natural language.
E.g. legalese.
Truth arises more readily from error than from confusion. -Francis Bacon
it should be money invested in research by any group shared to all.
In other words, if it is to be our money then everyone must benefit. It must be given and used within that context.
The government should not be handing money to private institutions because they screwed up. The model used by the big 3 is not sustainable and Tesla isn't up to solving transportation problems because of scale.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You're truly full of it if you think the unions are responsible for this.
Yes, they have to pay their workers well, and this is more expensive than paying them dirt. However, the cost above minimum wage for ALL automotive workers is a tiny fraction of the shortfall being experienced by automotive companies. In other words, even if UAW worker made minimum wage with no benefits, these companies would still be asking for enormous bailout checks.
The cause for this is a poor economy. Anyone who claims otherwise is trying to spoon feed you bullshit.
I am all for helping new tech become feasible but with one catch.
This may be crazy, and I might be slightly off topic, but to me, if tax payers pay for researching new technology then shouldn't the information gained from that research remain in the public?
The American government is shelling BILLIONS to save a naturally defective mortgage and banking system, to help stock markets get out of the pit they dug themselves and to get car manufacturers out of their stupidity, yet you all complain that Tesla Motors is asking for a $400M loan!?
You do know that a loan has to be paid back with interests, eh? The grants given to all those companies which shot themselves in the foot likely will never ever come back. Was the government to give GM some cash, they'd burn through it in a matter of months with flat out zero progress made. At least Tesla is trying something different and is having a sensible, possible plan. Obama said it himself: he wants the green cars to become a reality. Well, I guess Tesla is one way to go. The Roadster is already far more impressive than the Volt and I think their sedan will likely be their true grounding in the more general market. If you give cash to companies which basically ruined themselves by greed, you ought to give cash to companies which are trying to make things right. Otherwise, just take all the money back from those banks.
Oh wait, I forgot! They don't have it anymore...
Should the US Gov. throw billions at the rich fat cats who drove GM, Ford and Chrysler into the ground will low quality gas guzzlers that nobody wants,
Or fund new electric car companies that are leading the way to getting off of the OPEC ediction?
I don't think any of them should be handed a bailout, the best way forward would be to use short term (5 year?) tax incentives to encourage anyone to build fuel efficient cars.
Now that China has a growing market for personal automobiles, and are starting to make their own,
you can bet they will heavily fund electric car R&D since they too don't want to be slaves to OPEC, and quite obviously have a severe pollution problem.
Time to wake up and compete!
Bavarian Purity Law of Rice Krispie Squares: Rice Krispies, Marshmallows, Butter, Vanilla.
You can have Socialized Banking. Just don't ask for Socialized Medicine.
BTW. We're rightsizing you. Good luck making the COBRA payments!
Government run mass transit systems that are far more efficient than any other mode of transportation: problem.
Destroying efficient transit systems and replacing with inefficient road systems, finite and domestically unavailable energy sources: solution!
Government development of electric vehicles to salvage the free market's mistake of investing in road infrastructure: problem.
Free market solution of continuing to produce technology that is destroying the environment and our economy: solution!
Ask any of his Somalian friends... government is a problem masquerading as a solution.
Yes, it's a regressive tax. But the connection between the cost to society and the gallons of fuel consumed is pretty direct, these days.
If it's cheaper to keep your beater which gets bad gas mileage and doesn't burn gas cleanly, a person with little money will do just that.
We could compensate for the cost of taxes by offering low-interest loans for car purchases by poor people trading in a beater, who would need to show receipts for gas consumption.
(We could also send the tax revenues straight into public transportation, earmarking the money for expansion to badly served areas and modernization of gas-burning vehicles -- buses on the road today are general very inefficient, and modernizing those buses would pay back the investment in approximately five years, depending on the size and age of the buses involved.)
We need to get cars off the road which only make sense because gas is cheap. It's in everyone's best interest. A regressive tax is the stick. A carrot needs to be there, too, but you can't just do it with a carrot.
Who is worthy of this grant if not Tesla ! Jeez. Yes their cars are high end, but they have always stated that they want the technology to trickle down to a domestic consumer car. If it were up to me I'd give them the WHOLE AMOUNT. The Detroit dinosaurs NEED to DIE. They are a symbol of everything that is wrong with the US.
Excellent point!
You're absolutely right.
VWs little fuel sippin' diesel. It looks OK and gets better mileage than most mopeds, let alone full road bikes.(it ain't fast though, but that isn't the point either) Sort of George Jetsony looking, but wind tunnels determine shape. And at least you could have heating and cooling and be in out of the sleet and rain, etc. (I used to ride bike a lot, that bad weather stuff got to be old...) And I wouldn't care if it only got half the projected mileage if it was loads cheaper to mass produce using cheaper materials,etc., it would still be medium fantastic at over 100 MPG, and rides two with some cargo. It really is sort of a transition between motorcycle and car.
Yes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rav4ev
Toyota manufactured an all electric SUV called the RAV4 EV in 1997. This vehicle had a range of 100-120 miles and was sold to the public in 2002 for $42,000 a piece in California. Public demand was much higher than anticipated.
Texaco purchased the rights to the NiMH battery from General Motors and after a Chevron-Texaco merger, sued Toyota and Panasonic and forced them to stop the production of any large NiMH batteries.
The RAV4 EV no longer had a battery and production halted.
It was oil interests, not the government that put an end to this all electric car. In fact, the state of California and the IRS were offering up to $10,000 in rebates. Read the above article.
I think we should only bail out companies that are producing energy efficient cost effective cars. If this car companies want to get serious about saving them selves, they need to stop producing crap like the hummer. No one is going to buy one of those in this economy and its a total gas guzzler. Next these companies have to get serious about saving money, like selling their $20k per flight jets for executives.
Tesla can fuck off, seriously. No way in HELL do they deserve a bail out. They are making cars for the rich, this is NOT going to benefit those losing their houses and what not. Sure, maybe the workers would get something but they are working for a failing company that caters to a rich market.
mailed to their Manhattan addresses, Why shouldn't Tesla cash in on the wealthy welfare windfall? Heck, AIG is still paying big cash bonuses to its managers with our money.
Seriously, the seed money was designed to go to support the manufacture of energy-efficient cars. I don't really begrudge an innovator like Tesla some of Uncle Sugar's pocket change. Perhaps the tech will trickle down into cars we can all afford. Cars themselves were rich boy toys a century ago.
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Living in a cardboard box, do you think you'd feel the same way?
So many people that I see complaining about taxation have never, ever, been on the short end of the stick where they're dependent on social welfare.
It's very easy for anyone here to sit in their nice comfortable chair and say government shouldn't take their money to help others out because, by and large, most of us don't need the government's money to keep us going.
What taxes are used for is up to the government and in a democracy, people get to vote for who makes up the government. Just as your vote might some day result in a government that spends in line with your expectations, so too may the votes of others result in a government that spends in a manner that is contrary to your wishes.
Taxes are there to support the government functioning, providing services to the people of the country. Some of those services are directly visible, such as roads and social welfare. Sometimes the government needs to gamble and spend $X on helping a company get over a hurdle so that it can grow and provide employment, exports (income for the country) and so on. They're indirect benefits.
Whether taxation is immoral or moral is beside the point. It is necessary for society to function.
That the Internet exists today is a result of the government spending its money on R&D. Does the Internet secure your rights? Doubtfully, or can you stretch the definition of "secure" to be of comfort to yourself? What about NASA and so many other incidential advancements?
Let me give you a different scenario. If the government only spent taxes on security your rights (i.e. on weapons/army), what do you think the country would look like? No FAA, no FDA, etc. Or do you have a right to fly? A right to drive? A right to "good" food?
I suggest that if you don't like how taxes are spent that you join/form a country that does spend taxes in a manner that agrees with you.
Once upon a time, computers were the size of rooms and could only be afforded by governments and very large corporations.
Yet, after half a century of investment by the British at places like Bletchley, the US on ENIAC and the Third Reich on IBM products... plus things like the government funded ARPANET, we now have computers for everyone, internet for everyone, medical and scientific research advancing as people are capable of helping fold proteins or search the stars in their own homes.
Yes, right now, a Tesla roadster costs a lot of money. But, by investing in the technology, by establishing a market, by drawing interest, it won't do in ten or twenty years time.
Pretty much every invention that's improved human life or reduced our burden on the planet has been expensive at first. But that's never yet been a good reason not to help advance things up front, knowing it'll trickle down many times over, over time.
Couldn't the government just buy lots of shares in the company, or am I oblivious to the workings of capitalism?
How about this:
Take the money they are requesting and instead use it to fund the foundation of a brand-new, American-based, car manufacturing company. This new company will not only be able to hire all (or at least most of) the workers that the current ones lay off, but it will also re-introduce some competition in the industry (which, incidentally, is the lifeblood of capitalism).
That should both ease the economic crisis and help reduce the negative economic impact of the current auto cartel, while not rewarding the current industry controllers for their demonstrated financial incompetence (thus keeping the taxpayers less pissed off).
Sounds like a win all around, eh?
The Tesla Roadster is an all-electric vehicle, applying textbook conversions you get kilowatt hours but the main EPA figures on a car window sticker appear in miles, AND they give the Tesla something like 100+ MPG. However, EPA calculations take into account fuel scarceness, availability, fuel efficiency of manufacture and distribution. Thus the EPA MPG numbers become something like 200+ MPG. Check it out.
So it's not a simple KWH conversion. Far from it.
EPA requests input from its research laboratories on what it calls a utility factor. A fudge factor. That takes into account things like the Chevy Volt's ability to complete EPA test cycles not on gasoline power but _plug-in electrical_ power. Then once forty miles of testing deplete the plug-in electrical power in the battery it tests Volt's gasoline usage to charge the batteries, battery-electrical power that then powers the vehicle. The gasoline engine does not power the vehicle directly. Then you might combine the two numbers, add/or ``take into account fuel scarceness, availability, fuel efficiency of manufacture and distribution.'' Then factor in real world energy usage usage for power accessories, AC, lights.
You also have to make the numbers historically reasonable, comparable to past present future vehicles.
It means the reasonable (simple? you thought) conversion is a complex calculation fudge taking into account
-diesel cars
-gasoline cars
-flex gasoline-ethanol cars
-hybrid gas-electric cars
-plug-in electric cars
-plug-in electric-gasoline cars
-fuel-cell cars
-future development powertrain cars
BTW. ``Fuel scarceness, availability, fuel efficiency of manufacture and distribution'' favorable numbers means it costs me less to fill up, that is to say more money stays in my wallet.
If I can travel X miles at $0.02/mile on plug-in cheaper electricity* vs. same miles for $0.09 mile on more expensive gasoline/diesel that is ... .
* And NOT worry about range with power trains as in the Prius or Volt.
** The Volt is for sale in 2010 but EPA testing new methodologies including the Volt are ongoing.
If the gov't should bail anyone out it is Tesla Motors. But the gov't isn't bailing them out. They are just having trouble securing loans right now (they are good for it though) like many other companies and individuals. If the gov't gives them the money to finish their cars for those who have ordered them then the cars can be sold and the gov't can be paid back. No harm done. Since this isn't an issue of them making (or have already made) bad decisions I don't feel it is a bad thing they are getting temporary help from the gov't since the financial industry isn't willing to do so (in the form of loans). The caveat to this situation is that I hope it better become just temporary by way of Tesla paying the gov't back ASAP. To those companies who made bad decisions and now want help from mommy, I say too bad, but unfortunately Congress said differently.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
That $75/hour number is incorrect, for a variety of reasons outlined in the linked article.
...but this is a loan.I know i havea low uid (and thus actually read the article).But giving a loan to a buisness that is going to pay the government back,to further research on electric cars seems ok with me.
People don't get rich. They get rich through other people. Living vicariously is fundamental to human nature. We must focus our productivity on making life better for a few rich people to be rich ourselves. Taxes on workers should be 100% to pay for those roadsters. Work should be mandatory for everyone under a certain net worth as it is they who need vicarious riches the most.
Yes
--Rich Man
The problem with this is if taxpayers back the wrong technologies, ones that don't pan out in the long term, the subsidized tech may outcompete, artificially, tech that has a longer development pipeline but may be higher yield ultimately. I see this being possible with batteries, different kinds of photovoltaics, and even balancing nuclear against other energy sources.
Let's not be too short sighted here, Tesla do have new model designs aimed at the mass market: The BlusStar, due to be produced in 2012 and estimated to cost $20-30k and the WhiteStar/Model S, estimated at $60k and in production by 2011. I say give them the loans to help them build the factories in the US as soon as possible.
Would you mind converting to "Olympic Sized Pool" for us laymen?
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Yes, the credit crisis might unneccarily strangle some promising firm that might overwise have survived without it.
I am not too fiscally conversative that I dont see the point in stepping in with tiny loans to save some of the most promising innovative firms going bankrupt because credit has frozen due to hysteria. This really is a no-brainer for me.
Doesn't centi- signify 1/100th? Why would we care about people with $10000?
Or did the submitter really mean hectomillionaires?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Do the top 5% really pay 80% of the income, inheritance, corporation, property, sales, liquor, and road excise taxes (tires, gasoline), as well as import duties? I doubt it.
I piss off bigots.
it's capable of moving hundreds of people at low cost
it's green (well, greener, depending on how you produce the electricity)
it's proven technology.
it's popular in Europe.
it's fast.
.
.
.
it's called... dum dum dum... THE TRAIN
See also: Subway, Metro, Tram et al
Electric cars are akin to a bandage on a stab wound. They stop the bleeding for a while, but the overall problem remains: you have a nasty gash that's going to need stitches. Americans have to rethink their cities. Suburbia brings a gadzillion problems to society, the car is merely the most visible tip of the iceberg and the most visible target. The electric car is metaphorically the mechanical bandage on a much, much deeper wound.
The short and curlies is that American cities (and cities in many other parts of the world, it's not just the USA) don't work and electric cars aren't going to solve that. We need people friendly cities. High density, pedestrianized, urbanised centres of culture. Not just a few ugly, nondescript concrete slabs on the banks of asphalt rivers.
The correct silly word is hectomillionaire.
centi == * 10^-2
hecto == * 10^2
-Snorbert, somewhere in the antipodes
Tesla do some "integration work", that is they make a big battery module from calls they find on the market. But the important progress in batteries comes from companies like A123 and Valence, which actually work on the battery cells and improve them.
The rest of an electric car is mature technology these days. Electric motors and the electronics to drive them have been in use for a while.
C - the footgun of programming languages
.
In 1920, there were about 22 million cars on US roads.
15 million of them Fords, with the Chevy moving up fast on the outside. The luxury car is an insignificant part of the total.
The steam and electric car is fifteen year old "luxury car" tech that is fading fast.
Henry Ford financed research by building a car for mass market sales and production. The million-seller generates a nice pile of cash.
The Stanleys produced about 500 handcrafted cars a year in its prime. There is nothing to invest in research. The Steamer doesn't have a condenser until 1915.
But no later than 1910 the horse trough on Main Street has disappeared.
The auto industry has been pushing $30,000+ luxury cars, SUVs and pickups in 90% of their TV ads and now they want a bailout. Saying those ads aren't shaping taste is like saying Joe Camel didn't appeal to kids.
My wife and I don't have an desert shale roads, swamps or surreal explosive obstacle courses on the way to work and there are only the two of us in our household. Where is our $12,000 Euro-Ford? Well, Europe, I guess. So for consistency either give Tesla it's money if we give the other manufacturers money -- or screw 'em all. Doesn't matter. Really, what's the problem printing up a few more billion after the debacle of Fall, '08?
Why can't we have a CHEAP electric car?
Ingredients:
Any lightweight econo-frame, tires, drive train, etc.
One or more electric motors.
1,000 laptop batteries.
With economies of scale there is NO reason we can't be producing these by the millions for $5,000 a piece, even paying factory workers a living wage.
It's pretty clear that there are special interests STILL controlling the industry and continuing to lock the World populace into oil dependency. I just don't understand the motive!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
However, the cost above minimum wage for ALL automotive workers is a tiny fraction of the shortfall being experienced by automotive companies.
The problem is that additional costs have a very nonlinear effect on profits/losses. In the case of the Big 3, the extra thousand or so dollars that unions are costing them per-car is ok when they were selling huge high-margin SUVs, but in the case of lower-margin smaller cars, the only way they could sell them at a competitive price was to sell them at a loss. As a result, back in the late 90s and early 2000s they put all of their emphasis on SUVs, since they were they only cars they could sell at a profit and still pay off the union costs.
Now, things have changed and SUVs aren't quite so popular any more. The Big 3 are doubly screwed, because they couldn't sell smaller cars at a profit in the first place, and since they had to rely on SUVs for a while they put fairly little development effort into smaller cars. A bailout is only postponing the inevitable for them.
The Ford Model A was an unsophisticated vehicle except where it counted ---
in that tough, damn near indestructible, little four-cylinder engine.
If there are no trained mechanics outside the major cities, than you build a car that doesn't need a trained mechanic.
A car that can be built on an assembly line without skilled labor.
If the roads are mud, you build for mud.
You don't build for speed.
You need only the simplest of transmissions. You need only the simplest of mechanical brakes.
Ford understood that he could leverage the lack of infrastructure to support the automobile to his advantage.
The Ford Model A and Model T were basic transportation.
They were easily and cheaply "modded" into pick-up trucks, delivery fans, campers - anything you needed. The farm tractor. The stationary engine on wheels. It had everything but a PTO.
The railroads put them on tracks. Rural libraries used them as bookmobiles. The shopkeeper put his grocery or general store on wheels.
One traveling evangelist and his wife built a tiny church on a Ford body, and took to the road with a pump organ and a fold-down steeple.
That I would like to have seen, both for its innocence and its imagination.
Yes, the initial lines of electric cars are going to be expensive. Too expensive for Joe Blow worker to afford as soon as they come out.
What needs (and is) currently happening is there is a huge effort to make "being green" a fashionable thing. Let's face it, there are lots of people who won't even think about alternative fuels and global warming unless the cast of Twilight are all seen driving electric cars.
As it becomes cooler, it will trickle down to the upper middle class, then the middle class, and eventually there will be so many of them that they are practical for everybody.
In other words, even if UAW worker made minimum wage with no benefits
They'd be making a lot of money. At a glance, GM has at least 70k UAW workers (they have roughly 250k employees total according to here). I've heard elsewhere that the average compensation and benefits is $70 per hour. So let's say, it got reduced to $10 per hour. Now GM is making roughly $4 million an hour more. If all the UAW employees work exactly 2000 hours in a year, that's $8 billion dollars in savings per year.
Looking at it, they apparently lost $38 billion last year the vast majority in equity and about another $20 billion in equity so far through September. Cash flow seems to be several billion in the red (almost -$6 billion in the past twelve months). Another $8 billion a year means they'd have positive cash flow. Positive cash flow means they don't have to tap depleted assets in order to keep running and would greatly improve the health of the company. They could wait out the market decline and recover some of what was lost in the past two years.
I'm talking about legislation, that recognizes unions as something special, something beyond, what simple freedom of association gives people.
For example, if the majority of workers in a particular workplace decide to unionize, the immediately obtain certain legal rights.
In a better world, these groups would be treated to "RICO" trust-busting and anti-racketeering laws, because trusts is what they are. Sellers of labor should have no more rights to unionize, than sellers of bread or auto-tires. A mega-union such as UAW has certainly reached a point, where it should be forcibly broken up by trust-busters.
I never made that claim. The unions are (unfairly) crippling the corporations, that was my point. They are crippling the economies of the regions too by preventing viable alternatives from coming into existence, because competing with the unionized auto-factory wage is nearly impossible, but that's a different topic.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Who we (taxpayers) support - Tesla or GM - is really a way of asking a much bigger question: Do we concentrate on seeding thousands of startups, and hope for economic salvation in the form of a few wildly innovative winners? Or do we focus on improving our infrastructure by helping existing industries (not necessarily companies) make their operations and supply chains more reliable and energy efficient? Otherwise said, do we turn to entrepreneurs or system builders to help us make the huge step from a relatively simple, disconnected world to a very complex, highly connected one? http://blog.vanno.com/index.php/2008/11/23/tesla-gm-and-a-national-cto/
1. let them deliver a business and implementation plan to introduce and sell a $30k electric car.
2. Give them a 400mil loan that is broken up into incentive milestones: you deliver x, you get y.
3. put a couple of independant auditors on the board to make sure they aren't siphoning cash to their crony friends, and actually deliver when they are supposed to.
If that were the model, with a lot of built in pressure, I would be more inclined to give Tesla $400mil than GM $4 billion.
Electric engines won't be the future imho. Bio diesel will be the future *nothing* can provide the same amount of energy hydrocarbons can minus nuclear.
Fuck Tesla.
These are by far NOT the first few electric cars. And cars aren't the same as computers.
Cars will not shrink in size 1 millionfold+ over the next 30 years, for example.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
So here's the real deal on this. This money was set aside back in September of this year by congress as low interest loans for automakers to try and get them to make something besides gas guzzling SUVs.
Hey guess who's actually already building electric cars that's right Tesla.
They stepped and said hey this is right up our alley. How about a loan for us so we can tool up and start building a 4 door sedan electric car for around 50k.
So here is where it almost got turned in to a bailout. Detroit big three came to Washington in their private jets recently and gave some BS sob story and said hey those Wall street guys did a broad daylight bloodless coup and got some money where's our share?
And congress says well hey why don't we just turn that 25 billion we earmarked to get you morons to stop driving your companies in to the ground and start building cleaner tech cars in to a bailout and you can just have it.
So as near as I can tell Tesla is probably the only group here trying to do the right thing. Oh and personally I could not give a crap about Tesla or electric cars.
The way I see it, GM's big financial mistake was agreeing to a stupid pension scheme. That's at most a 25-50B mistake.
105k year for a family isn't really a lot of money.... but even then, 105k a year isn't what a union autoworker brings home. The thing is, Toyota's built in the south are paying their workers $8 an hour, and GM workers are bringing home around $17 on average.
I would hardly call $17 an hour extravagant and $8 an hour is damn near indentured servitude, and for what, so some traitors can have a better dash on their car... make some statement about how they love the assholes that have yet to apologize for invading china more than they do their neighbors that landed at okinawa? It utterly boggles the mind that we did not hang hirohito as a war criminal and ban the imperial family just like we banned the nazis.
You can moan about free trade all you want. But free trade is an idea that came and was tried and failed and all we really have is a bunch of foreigner vultures opportunistically picking at Americans and exploiting the rampant disloyalty of a ruling class that exhorts others to wars that it does not fight in, expands the spending of government but does not pay for it, and pits its citizens like animals against the rest of the planet, all so they can get richer, while driving wages down for everyone else, and, at the end of the day... when they screw up, they come asking us stiffs for a goddamned bailout, and finally, when we ask for a bailout of the fraction of that, they balk.
This is my sig.
The big framework question is:
What is the best blend of economic methods to deploy to bring about a low energy low carbon emission future?
Right now the low energy low carbon emission future mostly appears to cost too much or it works too slow:
Solar electricity costs somewhere above $.50/kwh. and high performance electric cars are priced like the Tesla.
So is a loan to the big 3 or a loan to Tesla the best way to build an electric car?
All of these organizations have the same problem: No cheap electric car energy storage device.
The problem is not motors, magnets, electronics or chassis design. It is the energy storage device.
The automotive field previously was stalled for decades at a time waiting for innovations to trickle past the patent wall and other production barriers. Examples include: engine valve alloys and spring steel technology, hydraulic brakes, the ignition system, the deep draw steel oil pan, the front wheel drive CV joint, the automatic transmission.
Now who is holding what patents for what?
I don't know. On my wife's Honda I see lots and lots of really ingenious good ideas. I see ideas that were never around when I was working on Studebakers.
It seems to me all these "new battery" technologies involve making a roll of electrodes and spacer materials, dunking the thing in some glop and then sealing the top of the battery can.
Somebody has a patent for some parts of this process and basically that means a 10 year delay while we wait for the patent to expire.
Remember how Xerox held up the xerographic copy machine business for 20 or 30 years with patents? How about the pharmaceutical companies and their high price AIDS drugs?
What possible government assistance is available if foreign organizations hold the key patents needed for mass production of electric car batteries? There is no clear path for the government to clear away patent obstacles.
So let's explore the development of the syllogism:
If patents and undisclosed business secret technologies block the production of traction electrical storage devices what would be the most productive government intervention and assistance?
Should the solution be a few ivory tower Manhattan projects given to a few prestigious colleges or should we try a massively parallel research project done at the next 10,000 perfectly worthy colleges and junior colleges in the USA.
The bio tech field has had a pattern where once a scientist got a feeling for specific set of chemical processes and results. The scientist would either join a company and file patents or the scientist and the University would file patents. The result is the people get high priced proprietary Aids drugs even though public funds paid the initial research.
So let's restructure the government intervention in the "electric traction energy storage device" problem so the result is a low cost, generic, easily repairable energy storage device ... with the right kind of government research and development and prototype trials: Open research with no patents and full publication of results and methods.
How many people does Tesla employ? (I have no idea. I simply think it's a relevant aspect.)
Centimillionaires? Let me see, a centimeter is 1/100 of a meter, so a centimillionaire is a guy who own 1/100 of a million = 10,000. Stands to reason, I'd say. BTW, it is nice to see you guys in America finally making use of the metric system ;-)
My understanding is that the reason government gives our taxes to private businesses has little to do with the value of the products those businesses produce. They do it because those businesses employ many people, and those people feel they are entitled to have a job, and since they have no useful training (so they wouldn't be able to get a job if their employer went out of business), they say they'll vote against anyone who takes a stand against giving public money to private business.
If you don't like it, you should pledge your support for whatever honest politicians that you can find, in order to cancel out this influence.
Should Tesla be bailed out? Of course not. But should politicians, who like autoworkers are entitled to keep their jobs, vote to give your money to these people? Of course.
I wonder if anyone realizes that most normal supercars are huge gas guzzlers. The Tesla Roadster is efficient. So even IF it needs coal power to charge the batteries, I suspect that's better than a huge gas guzzler engine. So while it's not perfectly clean, it's probably better to have our rich drive electrics than gas. The other interesting fact to point out is Tesla blew a mere 55 million according to the company to develop their car. The other large 3 automakers I suspect couldn't develop a car for that cheap considering how long it's taking their volt to come out. Seems to me that if you're going to throw away 25 billion to the car industry which in North America appears to just flush money down the drain (nice private jets guys), you might want to give a little to a company that's actually trying to innovate cheaply even in hard times. I mean seriously government has funded worse stuff with more money. (Stock bailout money anyone?)
"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators." - James Madison in letter to James Robertson "[Congressional jurisdiction of power] is limited to certain enumerated objects, which concern all the members of the republic, but which are not to be attained by the separate provisions of any." - James Madison, Federalist 14 "The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined . . . to be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce." - James Madison, Federalist 45 "If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions." - James Madison, 1792 "The Constitution allows only the means which are 'necessary,' not those which are merely 'convenient,' for effecting the enumerated powers. If such a latitude of construction be allowed to this phrase as to give any non-enumerated power, it will go to every one, for there is not one which ingenuity may not torture into a convenience in some instance or other, to some one of so long a list of enumerated powers. It would swallow up all the delegated powers, and reduce the whole to one power, as before observed" - Thomas Jefferson, 1791 "Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated." - Thomas Jefferson, 1798
Constitutionally Correct
Tesla are not innovators. They are "re-packagers".
They are taking a chassis designed by Lotus, who ARE innovators, and installing an electric driveline which results in a car which suits only a few people because of its high purchase price and its very limited cruising range. The Tesla car is a toy for rich people who want to be perceived as "cool", and is less practical than a VW Golf TDi, by any rational measure.
Right now, cars like a VW TDi make a lot more sense in the real world, and if more of you people knew anything about cars, both electric and hydrocarbon-burning, you would know that.
Lastly, this problem has been dealt with before, in the form of propulsion systems for submarines. Until nuclear, the answer which worked for all the navies in the world ( ok, there was the Stirling engine system in those Swedish boats, but that was not widely adopted ) was a diesel-electric system. And if it weren't for the arrangements made in high level conferences which involved automakers from Japan, the EU, and the US, that IS the system which would be in favor now, because it makes the most engineering sense AND the most environmental sense ( provided urea injection is used ).
As it stands, the central problem in the advancing development of electric vehicles is the battery technology, which simply is not good enough yet. Now, is Tesla developing batteries ? No. Tesla is making what amount to tricky kit cars, and as such Tesla is not an innovator any more than the Wizard of Oz was a wizard.
Finally, if Elon Musk believes in his little pet project so deeply, let HIM spend HIS last dime first, and then he can ask for help,
which he does not now deserve, any more than Ford / GM / Chrysler deserve a handout. And all you who actually believe that government assistance will result in Tesla building cars which actually matter ? You're naive suckers. It's the BATTERIES that matter, along with the existence of a charging nfrastructure, and the rest is just smoke and mirrors, and that is why Tesla is now in trouble, because their current products don't make sense, and furthermore, adding two seats to the technology they now use won't make sense either, except perhaps to a well-off geek who leads such a pathetic life that he believes his choice of car makes him "cool" ( hint : it doesn't ).
> Valley's billionaires and centimillionaires who are Tesla investors
hectomillionaires. centimillionaires have $10,000.
It's not about the few rich a holes who will get their cars. I couldn't care less about these guys, and don't intend to help them. But here is how helping them helps the rest of us.
And it's not trickle down economics. It's trickle down technology.
Tesla will drive a whole food chain of electric car parts vendors, driving research and pushing costs down. This will eventually make it economical for the rest of us.
If you remember computers in the 50, 60 and 70 where the domains of fortune 500 and large government projects. But without the investment into these dinosaurs of the computing world, the PC would never had happened.
If we don't support electric car companies now, the we will never move off oil.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
MOD PARENT UP!!!
Tesla is one of the companies poineering the way for low pollution cars. Once they pull out of the hole, they intend to start selling more affordable cars. This promotes electric car R&D, the infrastructure for electric charging stations, and other aspects of the growth of electric cars. They are one of the few car companies that did not drag their feet on auto mileage, and are hurting now only because of the economy. Helping them get back on track and into production will help solve our energy and environmental problems in the long run.
Why are you guys even arguing about corporate taxes??? This is a personal income tax issue. 10% (the top wage earners) of the US paid 71% of income taxes in 2007. ... 30% (the lowest wage earners) paid a net-zero income tax. Something is really out of wack when you have a sever minority carrying the weight of the US's budget.
I say the this loan situation is OK because if only rich people can afford the autos, we are spending their money on it - not ours.
Should Taxpayers Back Cars Only the Rich Can Afford?
Yes, once the rich start paying their fair share of taxes!
No, I will not work for your startup
After reading the legislation behind the 25B fund, I'm pretty convinced tesla deserves atleast 20B of them. This is not a bailout, but a fund setup to companies advancing electric vehicles, something that tesla has almost singlehandedly kickstarted.