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Tesla CEO Says Gov't Loan Is 99% Sure and Deserved
N!NJA writes "Two major themes of our time — the desire to achieve energy independence and the furor over public bailouts — have collided in the drama surrounding swanky electric carmaker Tesla. Late last year, a New York Times column whipped Silicon Valley innovators and bailout-weary taxpayers into a frenzy. Valley professor and writer Randall Stross wrote that Tesla was hoping for government money to produce its cars, which only the very wealthy could afford. It wasn't exactly true, since the loan was intended to produce the $50,000 Model S sedan, not the $109,000 Roadster. Still, Stross called it a risky, waste of taxpayer money that would only benefit the wealthy and bailout VCs who'd sunk money into the money-losing company. Never mind, Tesla has developed two cars on less than $200 million — compared to the $1 billion General Motors spent developing the now-deceased EV1."
With government monies, does that mean we will get some openness into their car's technology or other aspects such as cost of goods sold, cost of manufacturing and other details in the breakdown? Is it possible that the car actually costs nearly $50k? What about other factors of production that could later lead to lower-cost production cars? If they sell the first models for higher prices, doesn't that then allow them to build larger facilities and cheaper cars by volume? Furthermore, since the parts used in creating the cars will likely be sourced from outside the company, there will likely be parts that could be used by other makers of the same or similar technologies that will compete with Tesla and therefore also serve to drive costs down.
I think the beginnings of new things are ALWAYS ridiculously high priced. Does anyone recall the first microwave ovens? Not only were they crappy, but they were QUITE expensive.
I say let the electric car get made and see where things go. If we never try, it will never happen.
High-current home batteries. They sit on the wall and trickle-charge over 14 hours, and you plug the car into it (with a bus-bar) and it fully charges in between 5 and 30 minutes. Tesla could do this, if they could afford to engineer it. Until and unless we run heftier power cables to homes, or install EV charging stations at the gas station, we put up with overnight charges.
Point is, this can change with a little work and/or commitment.
I got a drive in a (rich) friend's Tesla this weekend when it was delivered and have a test report.
Executive summary: Oh. My. God.
Items missing: Three point harness. Leg restraints. Sufficient handholds for passenger. AI software to maintain directional control during GLOC. Erica Lane's voice saying "pull up, pull up."
Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) = 90% efficient
ICE(20-25%) * Batteries(95% efficient) * Electric Motor(95% efficient) =
23% efficient
The tesla has a range of 220 miles on 53kwh of batteries.
The amount of energy in the batteries is equivalent to about 2 gallons of gas.
Electricity cost to fill the pack, about $4.
I agree that the Aptera is a more innovative design, the slippery shape is more aerodynamic and the front wheel drive train is more efficient at capturing regen brake energy more effectively. The Aptera will initially only be sold in California and I am not sure how a three wheeler would handle the snow so I probably wont be buying one soon.
But the Tesla pure electric drive train is more efficient overall and they have been building and delivering vehicles, but as you said 120k is too much for a vehicle. The model S is more tempting, but still very pricey.
We have the best government that money can buy.
Additionally, there is a strong ethical argument against protectionism. "Buy American" is essentially a racist statement. You're implying that the value of an American is higher than that of someone from another country by saying that it's better to protect industries in this country to protect the jobs. At some point, we've got to start calling out "Buy American" for the racist statement that it is.
I couldn't agree more. Remember all those grandstanding congressmen grilling the auto makers but making sure to get their soundbites in about how they all drive American cars? If I were up there I'd be saying "I drive a Mitsubishi Eclipse because the cars you guys make all suck! Now get your asses in gear and make cars that people want to buy for a change!"
It reminds me of the talk about protecting 'American' jobs, all the anti-visa and anti-immigration groups calling for protectionism of American workers. Feck that sh1t! Let the best man for the job get the job whether he happens by an accident of birth to hail from Belfast, Belgrade, Bangalore or Boston.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Buy and bailout GM just to protect the pensioner?
I know for a fact (being the grandson of a pensioner) that Goodrich has enough money in their pension fund that none of their current pensioners have a single worry were Goodrich/Michelin go bankrupt. It's already set aside. In fact, they sent out a letter to the pensioners saying that they put aside TOO MUCH and were being required by the IRS to take some back. (Capital-to-pensioner ratio was too high.)
Why did GM not put the money aside into an interest-bearing escrow account all along? It is tax-deductible, and we all know how much corporations like deductions. That should've been set aside long ago as a portion of each paycheck everyone's parents and grandparents earned.
I don't think that we should feel obligated to buy a GM car now because they didn't manage their pension money properly yesterday. It would be cheaper just to top off the pension fund and provide some new start-ups with low-interest loans to get themselves on their feet and managing their money more wisely.
-Pope Peter Porker, S.O.W., K.M.K.R., U.G.O.A., F.S.G.S.D.
You're from Vermont, have you read McKibben's book? I read it, and while I like certain aspects of it, I'm just not sure it's realistic.
Why do you want to limit economic improvement to certain people?
The problem is that US car companies *are* building cars many want to buy... regulations prevent them from selling them here...
There's a turbo diesel PT Crusier that get 65+ mpg... I'd buy one in a heartbeat... can't get one here...
If the US gov would move the sulfur emissions regulations to the fuel side (require sale of only sulfur free diesel) rather than the cars, we'd have more fuel efficient cars than we'd know what to do with ...
Sadly, we've had decades where the petro industry has been lining the pockets of our representatives better than the auto industry has been able to do. So we're stuck with car companies that aren't *allowed* to sell us what we want.
This is *not* an Union workers issue... This is not an incompetent auto industry issue... this is yet another corrupt government issue...
It's time to deal in reality, rather than the propaganda we're being fed.
(I'm not sure that it actually is though. It moves the burning of fossil fuels to somewhere else, but doesn't eliminate it. I'm also curious as to what plans they have for recycling the batteries at the end of the vehicles life span, what is the potential for environmental contamination in the event of an accident or car fire, etc)
First off, when it comes to combusting fossil fuels, the internal combustion engine is one of the least efficient ways of doing it. Then toss that in with the whole drive train and you lower its efficiency even more. You're right that Tesla isn't eliminating fossil fuels but pollution control and efficiency are a lot easier to attain at a power plant than in a car. And if power generation shifts to cleaner technologies then these cars are allowing for cleaner driving. As for recycling, the batteries are recyclable and aren't anything foreign to the world (we've been using Lithium batteries for a while now). I would hope that Tesla would at least facilitate (if not run) the recycling of these batteries for their customers.
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
We have such a strange system of government because people like you just guess at the right answer instead of putting in the time and effort of carefully figuring out the patent and latent effects.
1) Why 5 years? Why not 4 years, or 6 years? Why have any time limit whatsoever? Why have any income taxes at all: maybe just property taxes, or something else?
2) Why progressive? Why not regressive, or a head tax? Why not a flat tax? Again, why do we tax income? Are you aware that a large personal exemption would opperate as a progressive tax? Could we raise enough money with your system? If not, what spending would we cut?
3) Almost everyone wants a judicial system where a plaintiff only gets their "fair" share. But what is fair? Also, what mechanisms are we going to use to make sure people don't abuse the system? Who decides what is abuse? Sometimes a hard-and-fast rule may classify someone as an abuser of the system, and they aren't, and vice-versa. The punitive damage system was already tried in California (and other places). Plaintiff's and Defendant's settled the lawsuits and re-labeled the punitive damages as compensatory in their settlements. There were other negative effects, too.
4) How does this affect the incentive to invent? Are software patents really all bad? Are some types of software worth saving? If it forseeably takes 100s of hours to find out a mathematical property, is it really in societies best interest to deny the "inventor" any protection.
There is no such thing as right and wrong. If you kill everyone on the planet, whose left to tell you what you did is right or wrong? There are only physical limits.
By the way, I agree with you generally, but I think you are using overly simplistic logic. Study this stuff if you are really passionate about it.
Really, I'm not trying to be clever with my signature.
Front and center is this policy of free trade. The idea of American competition is a total sham. We have been hearing for 50 years that opening our markets to the world would improve our standard of living, and induce the world to do the same, and neither has happened. Instead, the world is more protectionist than ever, makes every excuse to avoid reciprocating imports.
Please mod this up.
Any "conservative" or "libertarian" promotic so-called "free trade" is a liar and a fraud. They simply DO NOT WANT FREE TRADE. What they want is to have trade barriers altered to favor THEIR PRODUCTS. Not the American economy as a whole. Not the taxpayer. But themselves and their campaign donors. The same "free traders" that decry subsidized health care don't say one word about the MASSIVE US agricultural and energy subsidies, because they're making money in those industries. They're making money in the insurance companies as well which is why they fight tooth and nail to cut costs there. Insurance, basically ALL insurance in ALL forms, is a fraudulently used to abuse consumers.
As I've said numerous times before the #1 problem in America, far beyond "terrorists", the "drug war", etc. is CORPORATE fraud. Corporate fraud is the cause of the financial crisis. Corporate fraud eats up about 50% of every American's paycheck. I believe the problem has gotten so bad that LLCs have to cease to exist for fraud claims. The only solution at this point is to hold officers and major shareholders personally and individually criminally responsible for corporate fraud. We need a dedicated federal agency staffed by hundreds of agents doing NOTHING by corporate fraud prosecutions. Such an agency would cost $0. It would more than pay for itself in fines.
I guess that depends on what you mean by "Buy American."
Buying products that are made/grown in closer proximity to you has many advantages
Well, I agree with buying local anywhere in the world is the best way to go. I think the nation state is a good as boundary as any but I can see smaller nations wanting to buddy up.
What is wrong with wanting to improve the economic situation in the neighborhood/town/city/state/country where you live?
Agreed. It's like, people think, hey, nothing will happen when they buy a bunch of Chinese stuff and half the factories close down, and then suddenly wonder why property taxes are going up. In fact, taxes are going up everywhere partially because the stock and real estate booms hid the magnitude of the destruction of the tax base because of free trade.
This is my sig.