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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."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
It's a LOAN, not a bailout. You have to pay back loans. College students get them all the time, but you don't see people complaining about them.
(Yes, I know you get it. I'm replying to your comment to back you up, not to hassle you.)
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.
Tesla's business plan has always been to work their way down to an affordable car. They can only accomplish this by building some expensive ones first, because they don't have an outlet for large numbers of cars nor income from other lines to pay for the sunk costs of development.
If anything, we need to eliminate all subsidies and allow the major automakers to fail. Then we carve them up into smaller automakers, pat them on the back, and set them loose. This keeps them in business and in theory encourages innovation. GM is simply a balkanized tool of the status quo and it's incapable of turning a corner. The same is true of all of the major American and Japanese automakers. But if we are going to continue handing out money to failing automotive business models, we should certainly give some to Tesla motors in the hope that they can not fail to execute their business plan and after the luxury model, bring us a relatively affordable family car with a useful range.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
So... in your view, products should never be researched and manufactured until your average bear can afford them?
That would be really upsetting news to people who made the first... oh, computers... televisions... CD players... PMPs... DSLRs... video cameras... multichannel stereos... general coverage receivers... GPS units... satellite television receivers...
You know. Things that come under the heading of "stuff that we've never had before because it requires high technology."
So I have a question. If these things aren't initially developed for people with deeper pockets, then where is the money to develop them supposed to come from? Over to you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
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.
Uhh, the Roadster is built on a Lotus Elise body and frame. If you are looking at a $50+k road hugging high performance vehicle full of win and awesome, the Lotus Esprit screams it at 8000 RPMs. It is a sexy looking beast that will bruise your kidneys with it's exceptionally stiff and race worthy suspension. To call it an ugly car is purely delusional. It is functional. Exceptionally so. To the extent that the pureness of it's function becomes its beauty.
I'm pretty sure that of the entire market of vehicles on the market today, only a tiny portion of them can be viewed as at all resembling the vehicles from Lotus.
And the new sedan is much more in line with upper market full sized sedan styling. If you don't like it either, wait another 5 years, Tesla will either be unveiling more lines with more traditional appearances, or they will get bought out by a larger manufacturer that will rebuild the modern sedan using their technology.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
You do realize that Top Gear admits to having faked the episode, right? It's an entertainment show; quit taking it so seriously.
As for your particular example: No, it doesn't take 14 hours to charge. The *standard* Tesla charger takes about 3 hours to charge a fully dead battery, and that's only *if* you drove it about 240 miles that day on a drivecycle akin to the EPA combined numbers / 120-200 if you raced everywhere / 50-100 if you were sprinting on a track. How often do you drive 240 miles a day, or race 120-200 miles? Even if you only charge it on a standard garage NEMA 5-15 (they're usually on a 20A breaker, so 18A is a safe draw, and let's assume 117V): Wall to wheels on the Roadster is about 250Wh/mi, combined. The average person drives about 35 miles a day. 35mi*25kW/mi=8750Wh=8750VAh. 8750VAh / 117V / 18A = 4.15h. So even if you, for some reason, *don't* have the standard charger installed, you can easily handle your daily drive and then some just on an ordinary wall socket. And a dryer socket has 3 times the power as a garage socket, and a range or RV socket 5 times the power.
That's why we need something that can be refueled quickly, which the Tesla certainly is not
Tesla is working on 45 minute charging stations for the Roadster and Model S. Of course, that limitation is due to their particular, unusual choice of batteries. Most other li-ion variants being considered for automotive applications can charge far faster. The titanates, for example, can charge in 5 to 10 minutes. Oh, and Tesla is planning to offer pack swapping for the Model S.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
If people want a real economic recovery, then the government should reduce the risk of investing in new businesses, which create and sustain economic growth.
Of course all the progressives will say that "favors the rich" etc and so on to any suggestion that makes businesses succeed. Which means that success is punished, and failure is rewarded, as it is currently in this country.
Here is my plan.
1) Capital Gains taxes on long term investments will be 0%. Long term investment = 5 years or longer. No taxes on dividends on any investment property (real or stock or otherwise) held over 5 years.
2) Simplfy tax codes to a flat and progressive personal income tax of 10 and 20%, with a generous personal exemption, say first 15,000 of income. However, everyone pays a minimum tax $100(or whatever). Everyone has to send a tax into the government. The reason is people who don't pay any taxes don't care what it is spent on; "it isn't my money".
3) Lawsuit reform. People can sue for real damages (pain suffering etc) still, but limits will be placed so that it no longer a "get rich quick" scheme. Additionally, punitive damages do not go to the vicim, but rather to the state (victims fund), and there is a Lawyer cap fee of 5% on those.
4) Patent Reform which includes peer review process for patent applications. Reforms would require not only abstract but a working (fully funtional) form of the invention. Software, mathmatical and other such "process" applications are void.
Breaking the stranglehold of government interference into earning a livelyhood is paramount to fixing the systemic problems we have now.
However, I'm sure that there is someone somewhere that would protest these very simple and sure solutions because it is "unfair" to someone somewhere. Well guess what? NOT having these rules are unfair to those that want the government to get out of the way so we can actually get stuff done.
There is something wrong when the government makes more on everything than the businesses providing the services and products being taxed (NewYork I'm looking at you!!!).
Four very simple things to do that would free up businesses to make products and services without having to look over their shoulder every two seconds to see some government or lawyer coming at them for something.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Um, duh, we all know the government bailing out companies isn't capitalism. Capitalism is selling homes to everyone regardless of their ability to pay. Then taking those sub-prime mortgages, making them in to little pieces, mixing them up with good loans, give them a high rating, and insuring them. With everyone buying houses, prices sky-rocket, so that even if the people can't afford the house, you reclaim it and sell it for even more money.
Oh wait, that's what got us in this mess. Capitalism has a lot of wonderful qualities. But it needs to be regulated. Not too much, not too little...but simply screaming capitalism and how it is the solution to everything is naive at best...complete and utterly stupid given the current situation at worst.
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I think the only bad impression I did get from it was the mileage on the battery. Sure, they were driving the car hard, but the life span didn't seem up to par.
Top Gear admitted that it didn't actually run out of charge. The entire "pushing it back" scene was staged.
They "estimated" that it would only last 55 miles sprinting at top speed... but you know what? A Bugatti Veyron will only go about 60 miles or so if you sprint *it* at top speed. Track driving ranges have nothing to do with normal city/highway driving ranges.
which subsequently overheated and then had some major subsystem failure....
The vehicle never heated; that was faked, too. The "system failure" was real, but way overplayed. In the process of thrashing it on the track, they blew one brake fuse (of several). It took a matter of minutes to swap out the fuse. At no point during the filming was Top Gear without a fully working Roadster.
Don't be surprised; they fake tons of things, and Clarkson is a huge hydrogen fanatic (he's admitted that he would have trashed the Roadster even if everything had been flawless because he sees hydrogen as being the future)
Don't trust everything you see on TV.
I believe Bird-Person can arrange that.
Geez, for some reason....there seems to be an almost inherit distaste for anyone with any type of wealth in this country these days. You almost seem to feel some level of vitriol anytime someone mentions people who make over $100K/yr and can afford something slightly 'nicer' than the people living in the projects.
The problem started when some people stopped believing that hard work, dedication, and pride in one's work are the way to get ahead in life. In other words, you earned your riches. Now what seems to be important is that you make as much money as quickly as possible with no regard to ethics, morals, or who you screw over.
I believe this is the reason people are so up in arms and rightfully so.
We're miles better than before. It's inarguable. Pick any measure you want - real GDP per capita, etc - we are better off. My Google Fu is failing at the moment, but there are several economic studies that have shown the differences between countries that have free trade and those that don't. The group with free trade shows much higher growth over any period you look at than does the group without free trade. I wish I had a link at the moment, but there are peer reviewed journal articles with this data.
Please provide evidence to support this statement. The WTO is aware of 421 regional trade agreements, over 90% of which are free trade agreements. These include NAFTA, CAFTA, EU, EFTU, MERCOSUR, AFTA, COMESA, etc. On top of that, many countries have free trade agreements with countries outside of their regional area.
Protectionist policies are part of what has hurt the US automakers. They were protected for too long and they weren't forced to be competitive. If we're unable to make cars and be competitive, then we shouldn't do it - it's economically inefficient. Why pay more to do it ourselves than we could pay someone else to do it? That's just bad business. Protectionist policies are failures - protecting an industry causes higher prices and inferior quality. Competition improves quality and lowers prices.
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 guess that depends on what you mean by "Buy American." Honda and Toyota have manufacturing plants in America. Is it "buying American" when you purchase a car manufactured at one of these plants? I'd argue that it is. All other things being equal, I see nothing wrong with "Buy American." It isn't really that much different than the "Buy Local" movement that is popular across the country, especially here in Vermont.
Buying products that are made/grown in closer proximity to you has many advantages:
* Lower transportation costs & less pollution
* Keeps the money you're spending in the local economy
* Helps to secure employment for local people
* Encourages cohesion in the local community
Obviously, the scale of "local" depends on the situation, but I don't see why at least some of the benefits don't scale up to the national level. What is wrong with wanting to improve the economic situation in the neighborhood/town/city/state/country where you live? You do, after all, live there. You need to have a job. A steady income. Services like fresh water, sewer, police, hospitals, etc.