Tesla Gets $34 Million Tax Break, Adds Capacity For 35,000 More Cars

cartechboy writes "The state of California will give Tesla Motors a $34.7 million tax break to expand the company's production capacity for electric cars, state officials announced yesterday. Basically, Tesla won't have to pay sales taxes on new manufacturing equipment worth up to $415 million. The added equipment will help Tesla more than double the number of Model S sedans it builds, as well as assemble more electric powertrains for other car makers. In addition to continued Model S production, Tesla plans to introduce the Model X electric crossover in late 2014, as well as a sub-$40,000 car — tentatively called Model E — that could debut as soon as the 2015 Detroit Auto Show. It turns out California is one of the few states to tax the purchase of manufacturing equipment — but the state grants exemptions for 'clean-tech' companies."

Comments

Move to breeder reactors

[areusche]

Elon's next company should be called "FusionX" that creates portable breeder reactors. It would be a nice addition to his current portfolio of cars and rockets.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[rossdee]

That should be FissionX, fusion is a whole different energy source.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[zlives]

it doesn not matter how the technology works, what the technology is or if the technology works... if it sounds good enough FTB will come after me for a sock i purchased outside the state to give tesla a break.

damn... i sound like a tea bagger lol

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[i kan reed]

Not that fusion is as far off as people think it is. There are some really promising experiments other than the big ones, that seem single digit years away from usable designs.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[zlives]

source please, would love to read and keep the hope alive :)

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[tedgyz]

Like holographic memory? That has been single-digit years away for decades.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[dpilot]

It's not that far off - in only 20 years we'll have fusion power.

Just as it's been for the past 30 years or so.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[hawguy]

Fusion is easy.
Fusion with a decent gain factor is hard.

I thought it was only *controlled* fusion that was hard. Producing energy using fusion was tested and working over 50 years ago.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[FatdogHaiku]

Get the reactor small enough to run a car and break out the "Gone Fission" bumper stickers!
This could put an end to tailgating drivers... one way or another...

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[ArcadeMan]

And after that, devices to capture ghosts, right?

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[WillAffleckUW]

Not that fusion is as far off as people think it is. There are some really promising experiments other than the big ones, that seem single digit years away from usable designs.

I've been hearing that since the 1963 World's Fair.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[confused one]

at that scale (2% of x = 1MT --> x=50MT, they were built as fission initiated fusion devices. the 100kT to 1MT devices are mostly fission fusion fission (or enhanced fission) devices. -- that's what we have in our current arsenal... that's plenty big. Not much need to keep those around as it is.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

I believe he's talking about cold fusion, aka LENR (Low Energy Nuclear Reactions), not the hot fusion tech that has gobbled perhaps one trillion dollars worldwide (in today's dollars) since research on hot fusion started in the 1960s.

Considering LENR is considered voodoo science, essentially banned from using govt money in all countries that are large producers of fossil fuels (specially USA, UK, Canada and Australia), I'd say return on investment in LENR research is about one million times better than hot fusion research (still 20 to 50 years away from any practical applications).

Just search e-cat "andrea rossi", that's the forerunner in this tech. And Fleishman and Pons for the beginning of relevant story on this research area.
PS: I'm trying really hard to avoid any splinter off topic subject here, so if you'd like to discuss this in slashdot, take one of the recent pages on LENR and start a new topic there.

Mr. Rossi already has systems in production, but it's a murky thing, arguably because those customers wish to remain anonymous (speculation it's military customers). And is taking pre-orders for 2014 delivery for 1MW LENR reactors for low temperature steam applications.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

Hot fusion research is a scam.
It's not a technical scam, but an economical/publicity scam.
Major governments happily put money on this because they know it's zero threat to fossil fuel interests that are strong in power even in today's green Obama administration. Just look at it from a skeptical standpoint. All clean energies being invested on today are way too expensive. The only solution that would allow us to get rid of 90+% fossil fuels (with electric cars/busses) with proven, already in operation tech is nuclear fission. BTW, electric cars are great, my beef is with large scale solar photovoltaics / huge wind farm projects that are only economical with enormous subsidies (must produce electricity to compete with coal/natural gas at wholesale prices). Most wind farms produce less than 10% of maximum output about 50% of the time, since they require weather systems to go through to produce enough winds to generate much electricity.

Cold fusion that is the real threat, no wonder is has been ostracized for the last 25 yrs, because it could kill both the fossil fuel industry as well as centralized electricity production (aka, make the national electricity grid obsolete).

While Mr. Andrea Rossi's work is murky, easy to criticize, skip his stuff and just look at the number of times the Fleishman/Poons experiment has been successfully reproduced, and still the US DOE and other govt funding sources continue to consider Cold Fusion voodoo science.

And Mr Rossi isn't the only party claiming to having a product almost ready for the market. If he was the only one, the argument that he's the best con artist since Harry Houdini, but multiple independent companies claiming the same thing, it's time the american people made a Occupy the US DOE movement, demanding LENR/Cold Fusion research be put immediately on part with cold fusion research, taking 50% of funding away from hot fusion projects into cold fusion research.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[Luckyo]

Wasn't Rossi the guy who couldn't decide what his invention actually is? At one point its "cold fusion", next it's weak atomic powers", next it's something else.

All of these connected by the fact that his "inventions" appear to be in direct conflict with currently accepted laws of physics. So it's a chance that one guy actually invented something that completely revolutionizes nuclear physics as we know it, as opposed to him being a hack who is after easy money.

Considering that he hails from Milan, has convictions for fun stuff like dumping toxic waste (which means that he has connections with mafia and does work for them, as that particular business has been in mafia hands for decades in Italy), your beliefs strike me as either exceptionally naive.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[Teancum]

The e-Cat is a total joke, along with Andrea Rossi. Every time somebody gets close to actually nailing him down to show off what he has done, it proves to be "just around the corner" and something goes horribly wrong (usually because he lost the power switch or something similar).

While I think there is some interesting physical phenomena that is happening with LENR, it is nowhere near anything resembling a practical device. It certainly merits some further research, but it isn't even useful for something like a neutron source.... which is much better done with an IEC reactor (like the Farnsworth-Hirsch reactor... called Internal Electrostatic Confinement reactors). At best it is a scientific curiosity. High school students have been able to build IEC reactors successfully (and they do produce neutrons and other evidence of actual fusion reactions going on), but even those are just toys that can never be a practical power source.

The most telling thing about just how far along Rossi has been able to get with his technology is an investigation in Florida over a nuclear technology license inspection of a supposed warehouse that Rossi was building these devices (located in Miami). As soon as Florida state regulators insisted that he demonstrate the safety of his devices, Rossi changed his tune instantly suggesting they weren't nuclear devices at all but instead merely electric water heaters (aka like a coffee percolator), and then disclaimed he was even using the site for manufacturing at all after that wasn't even satisfactory because of tax liability reasons.

I've made enough phone calls and e-mails to various people involved where they are either clueless fans running a website or people that simply don't want to call back with bona fide inquiries. In other words, a pure and simple scam. Even major fan websites are now shutting down simply because Rossi is out of tricks on trying to extend this long con. Rossi had his chance if it was a legitimate technology, but now it is only the ultimate fanatical people who keep perpetuating the concept. He is giving a bad name even to LENR researchers that are shunned in the scientific community.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

I used to be his cheerleader, not anymore.

But I'm still waiting for proof he's a total scam. Also waiting to proof that his product is for real as well.

He did give his reactor a chance to be tested for what 48hrs by some very sharp scientists, the test results were published, they couldn't peek inside, but they could futz around with all external connections all they wanted. No hidden wires found, no weird electrical signal hiding the energy. And the reactor is too small for anything but a nuclear reaction.
Before that test, I was pending back to he's a fraud, now I just don't know.

Fleishman & Poons experiment also appears to be in direct conflict with currently accepted laws of physics, so I my books, it's the laws of physics that need revisiting, and until those can be reconciled, I believe we can't use the laws of physics to rule out the e-cat as a fraud.

In my view, he has one last year to deliver.

I have to warn you that I also see a bunch of very rabid people that probably has some seriously vested interest in the billions being wasted in my opinion on fusion and others employed by the dirty energy lobby that I see your testimony just as questionable as Mr. Rossi's work.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

I used to be his cheerleader, not anymore.

But I'm still waiting for proof he's a total scam. Also waiting to proof that his product is for real as well.

He did give his reactor a chance to be tested for what 48hrs by some very sharp scientists, the test results were published, they couldn't peek inside, but they could futz around with all external connections all they wanted. No hidden wires found, no weird electrical signal hiding the energy. And the reactor is too small for anything but a nuclear reaction.

That test being published even go into Forbes online. Are you telling me Andrea Rossi managed to fool even Forbes Magazine ?

Before that test, I was pending back to he's a fraud, now I just don't know.

Fleishman & Poons experiment also appears to be in direct conflict with currently accepted laws of physics, so I my books, it's the laws of physics that need revisiting, and until those can be reconciled, I believe we can't use the laws of physics to rule out the e-cat as a fraud.

In my view, he has one last year to deliver.

The way you attack Mr. Rossi, you do strike me as a cheerleader for the fusion guys that need Mr. Rossi to be a fraud. I believe there's bias everywhere, and I'm trying to be as middle ground as possible by pointing out all that the answers you provide to your own questions have been questioned by lots of people that have nothing to do with Mr. Rossi.

About the nuclear state regulators. Those people have a treatment of anything nuclear that would kill any kind of LENR devices.

They have no flexibility, either it's nuclear and will get treatment by the book, or it isn't. So he skirted it by saying it wasn't, that might have been the only way out.

His argument is there's no high energy neutrons, gamma or alpha particles, so he doesn't deserve that regulatory treatment.

As far as breeder reactors... I think govt funding needs to increase so that at least one national lab gets a chance to build an experimental working LFTR reactor, another one would be tasked with building a similar pebble bed reactor. This is sooo much more important than wasting money on nuclear hot fusion. I think govt should also give GE money to build one full scale IFR demonstrator to both produce electricity and burn water reactor waste, but GE needs to bear all responsibility over it (instead of one run of the mill nuclear power plant operator), and the money would be a loan earmarked for that specific project, once the reactor has burned x tons of water reactor waste, the loan would be paid off in exchange for services rendered (burning nuclear waste) and they could keep the electricity revenue.

There has been some very academical very well published experiments using Paladium + Deuterium that resulted in fairly high energy outputs like 100x more power than the original experiments. If you were really interested in the truth, you'd be far more interested in answers than in attacking Mr. Rossi.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[TFAFalcon]

Weren't there some big non-hidden power cables running in to keep the 'reactor' functioning? And the measurements of the power going in were controlled by the 'inventor'.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

I just think there's nothing absolutely conclusive either way yet...
In my view the positive news of 2013 just kept him alive.
Even Fleishman & Pons experiments required continuous application of electric current in order to generate the anomalous heat. But the thermal output was at least a few times the input electricity.
The 1MW reactor requires 200KW electricity input.
It's not clear, but I believe those 200KW is mostly for startup of the reactor, since the demonstrations typically achieved 15x1 Thermal Output X Electricity Input
Some comments floated that his device has managed to work with the power cut off sometimes for as long as 15 minutes.
Called self sustain mode.
But I'm not interested in discussing the nitty gritty here.
I'll draw conclusions after his products are installed in multiple customer sites that are well published, and the customers declare the product is producing useful energy at costs similar to Mr. Rossi's statements, or if 2014 goes by, and no such statements come around. If 2014 goes by with no news for end customers, then my judgement is he's a fraud, and I wasted my time defending him here.

My goal with the discussion here is just to show any statements his work is a fraud could be biased, made by people who just don't want to give him a fair chance, people that want him to be a fraud, so they can continue to profit from major research grants into hot fusion (or profit from burning coal, natural gas and oil).

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[Luckyo]

I'm a fan of "follow the money" as well as "look for motives" principles. I'm also an avid fan of history and a ratio of sharlatans vs one of geniuses is a very bad one in human history.

As a result, assumption that he indeed has discovered some reason why modern physics are flawed and exploited the principle for power generation raises several questions:
1. Why is there no science behind it published anywhere? He'd be looking at Nobel and wide recognition at the very least with all the money that follows patenting application of said laws. This is billions in money and being widely hailed as savior of humanity at the very least.
2. If "dirty power" lobby is indeed against his invention, why hasn't it bought him out to silence him yet? He's stringing some clients for millions as opposed to billions he could be taking for his silence or technology licensing.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[Teancum]

That test being published even go into Forbes online. Are you telling me Andrea Rossi managed to fool even Forbes Magazine ?

Forbes reported on a media event and some speculation about the device. That Rossi held a media event advertising his supposed device (whatever it was that he was showing off) is no doubt true and there is some general interest in the idea of a low-cost small scale nuclear device is also true. As to the ability of that device to actually work as advertised (aka actually convert Nickle into Copper with Hydrogen in a fusion process) is way beyond the scope of any reporter from Forbes. Yes, I am saying that Rossi could fool a reporter from that company, but that isn't even what they reported. All they reported is that some sort of media event happened with a shipping container sized device that produced a whole bunch of steam and made a bunch of noise. How that steam was produced is what I'm critical about, not that the event was held.

Fleishman & Poons experiment also appears to be in direct conflict with currently accepted laws of physics, so I my books, it's the laws of physics that need revisiting, and until those can be reconciled, I believe we can't use the laws of physics to rule out the e-cat as a fraud.

I'm quite familiar with the Pons & Fleishman experiment, which has much more to do with Muon-catalyzed fusion experiments than with anything Andrea Rossi is doing. Far be it "in direct conflict with current accepted laws of physics", there is definitely some physical science phenomena going on with that particular experiment. What is in doubt is if Pons & Fleishman were capable of measuring the nuclear activity of their fusion cells with calorimeters instead of neutron detectors. The criticism of their work centered primarily on the claims of massive amounts of energy being produced that could have been turned into a commercial product, which is also my criticism of their work too.

It has been well within the known laws of physics that atoms can fuse together, which is in fact how the Sun operates. The speculation about LENR is that somehow you can use atomic binding forces from other elements such as the lattice structure of Palladium to put two or more atoms of Hydrogen together in close proximity to induce an occasional fusion reaction. The ability of Hydrogen to work its way into Palladium has been a widely researched phenomena, where the element is used routinely for hydrogen storage devices (such as hydrogen powered automobiles). What is thought is that the crystal structure of Palladium allows, through Brownian motion at room temperature, to have multiple Hydrogen atoms pile up into small pockets where they are confined in a space where nuclear forces can react between multiple nuclei of hydrogen atoms. Applying an electric current to the Palladium can alter the structure of the crystal partially to induce additional reactions compared to when that current isn't applied.

What isn't known is if this phenomena, which has been studied and measured with neutron detectors, can be induced to happen on a scale that produces significant quantities of heat and more specifically if the heat and energy produced from the fusion reactions will ever be more than the energy of the current being applied. As a scientific curiosity, it is definitely something interesting to look at. Even the idea that you could connect an ordinary light switch to a fusion device that would produce neutrons at will and would not be hazardous when it is disconnected from a power source has some really interesting scientific applications. Just don't get excited over throwing out electric generators made from other power sources though.

In my view, he has one last year to deliver.

You give him a year longer than I did. I used to be cautiously skeptical of the guy until recently, and I ended up talking to a few people that could have put some serious funding into the E-Ca

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

He wants the patent on this.
So far he only got a local (Italian) patent.
He pledged to publish his work in detail once he receives a worldwide patent.

Nobel prizes don't pay a billion in prizes.

But the following hypothetical scenario is possible: He knows he's a fraud, hence he'll never get a worldwide patent, so he uses that as an excuse to publish his technical details.

But if you follow my words clearly, I'm not saying he's the real deal.
I'm just saying people attack him with such determination, they look similar to professional climate change deniers.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[macpacheco]

Let's just follow two possible scenarios:

1 - He's a fraud, he will never get a worldwide patent, hence he'll never publish the detailed specs to his work. In this case, let him die an agonizing death, the least people talk about him the better.

2 - He's the real deal, and invisible powers are working really hard to slow him down as much as possible, as his work stands to destroy trillions in worldwide yearly revenues, killing him would actually be validation of his work, so they can't go that far, but instead play hardball with everyone in a position to help him substantially.

In my view only the Hot Cat can actually vindicate him, since it can produce enough electricity to power itself, providing for a closed loop system that only takes hydrogen in (plus a good size battery to start one up). And the hot cat is recent, it reportedly got to the point of being reliable in 2013.

I'm no Einstein, and no scientist, but I have had my share of extremely out of the box ideas in my lifetime, and have seen how people react to ideas that aren't in their box, so I tend to give them man some further leeway.

Now that NASA, US Navy SPAWAR and a few research institutions that have some independency and enough budget to do serious LENR research are on this, I believe the science foundation will move forward (at least on Deuterium - Paladium research) so one way or another LENR will be vindicated (someone getting a Noble prize) until 2030 for sure.

Back to topic, just consider what GM did to the EV1 (reportedly one of the big reasons Musk got into Tesla in first place). Do you think they destroyed those cars out of any logic other than powerful lobbies decided on killing the electric car on the spot ?

Just the fact that to date, LENR has never been raised as news on CNN and the bbc has a single article (from 2009) mentioning it. Just tried to search LENR on CNN search, and it changed to Learn, since there's zero articles with LENR !

If one is willing to look without being either a Scully or a Fox Mulder, one should still find plenty of proof there's serious forces trying to slow down technical advances on energy (except when it's way too expensive) as much as possible. Any quantum leaps are a big no no for those guys.

Re:Move to breeder reactors

[Teancum]

Back to topic, just consider what GM did to the EV1 (reportedly one of the big reasons Musk got into Tesla in first place). Do you think they destroyed those cars out of any logic other than powerful lobbies decided on killing the electric car on the spot ?

I'm still not sure what GM was doing with the EV-1 model. It was originally built with the intention to comply with a California state mandate to build electric vehicles.... something that never does well in a free market economy. At the time, I don't think GM could find a strong economic model for building electric vehicles that would give them a profit, and the goal at the time was simply to keep GM in business long enough to get the electric car mandate changed so the EV-1 could be phased out. It certainly was a business strategy to only have the EV-1 around long enough to comply with what the GM board of directors thought was a silly government mandate.

It is also very clear that the Chevy Volt was designed as a direct response to the Tesla Roadster, as the moment of its conception can be traced back to a visit that Martin Eberhart (before Elon Musk fired the guy) made at the GM headquarters where Eberhart parked a Tesla engineering prototype in the GM corporate HQ parking lot. I think that took some serious balls to make such a business move, and that was definitely not the reason why Eberhart was fired (which was mostly tied to the disaster that happened with the Roadster transmission due to it basically bankrupting the company and nearly killed Elon Musk in a real physical sense from stress and lack of sleep). GM needed to be shown that it was possible to profit from sales of electric vehicles. You can claim that the EV-1 could have been profitable, but I think the bean counters in the corporate HQ didn't see that as a long term solution.

I certainly don't subscribe to any major conspiracy theory other than a conspiracy of the GM board of directors simply lacking any confidence in a product they never wanted to make in the first place.

Just the fact that to date, LENR has never been raised as news on CNN and the bbc has a single article (from 2009) mentioning it. Just tried to search LENR on CNN search, and it changed to Learn, since there's zero articles with LENR !

In fairness to these news sources you are talking about, there hasn't really been anything ground breaking or newsworthy (from the perspective of a general news outlet) with LENR related research in the past decade. There have been some interesting ideas put forward and some scholarly papers presented, but those are hardly what would be called newsworthy except for a dedicated blog covering LENR research or general physics research. It really is an obscure topic and difficult to really grasp for journalism majors who only took science classes in college merely to plow through their general education requirements.

If one is willing to look without being either a Scully or a Fox Mulder, one should still find plenty of proof there's serious forces trying to slow down technical advances on energy (except when it's way too expensive) as much as possible. Any quantum leaps are a big no no for those guys.

I don't think there is anybody trying to slow down scientific progress in a systematic fashion, but I do think that there are government policies in place right now which discourage amateur scientific investigations. You can't find chemistry sets like I had when I was a teenager (a couple of decades ago) since such kids are seen as potential terrorist threats if they even try to mix random chemicals together in the basement of their home. Amateur nuclear researchers (of any kind) are definitely seen as freaks of nature and rooted out as potential terrorist targets (just see the link above with the Polywell researcher who got a nice visit from the NYPD because one of his neighbors freaked out). It is a cultural attitude that the only people who can do real scientific

Thanks, California taxpayers!

[TWiTfan]

The rest of us are grateful for your generous contributions to our new luxury cars.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[grogdamighty]

Meanwhile, if Tesla revolutionizes the modern car and creates a mini-Detroit (Golden Age, not now), I'm pretty sure California's taxpayers will be happy with the investment.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[AK Marc]

Presuming some sarcasm in there, does this mean you refuse to fly? After all, Boeing and Airbus both get direct subsidies greater than Tesla. Or is it OK when a standard tax break is given to Boeing, but not for Tesla? $9 billion is greater than $34 million. By more than $10!

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Twinbee]

They're likely unveiling the Model E, perhaps half the price, at the Detroit Auto Show in Jan 2015.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Only if Tesla stays in CA after the free money handouts stop and the "pay back to the people who made you rich and successful" part starts. If they up and move their primary manufacturing centers to the next sucker --- oops, I mean, "forward-looking business friendly state" --- to offer them free money/power/impunity once CA's generosity runs out, that mini-Detroit could end up wherever the leader in the national race to the bottom happens to be.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[JeffAtl]

From the state's point of view, it is an investment. The point is to give a company a relatively small tax break so that it will generate much more tax revenue for the state in the future.

It also falls into the category of x% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

To be clear, I'd push for the US and the individual states to eliminate business taxes altogether.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[zlives]

i think he means that the product is geared towards mid-to-upper class buyers and basically all (including poor) taxpayers are subsidizing it. It would be like apple getting subsidies for the gold iPhone.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[amicusNYCL]

Tesla is not getting tax breaks for the Model S. They are getting tax breaks for manufacturing equipment. The Model S is not the only thing they build and sell with that equipment. Tesla batteries are used in the Smart car, the Mercedes B-class will use a Tesla powertrain, and they supply most of the guts for new Toyota RAV-4 EVs. It's a smart investment by California - they give Tesla a break on the equipment, and then get additional income from the increase in products that Tesla sells (both their own vehicles, as well as parts sold to other companies). It's not like they give Tesla the tax break and then never see anything from that money again.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[viperidaenz]

You'd rather Tesla moves production offshore?
Businesses follow the money. If it's cheaper to go elsewhere, they go elsewhere, and take the jobs and profits with them.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mythosaz]

Once you subtract $180/mo in gas, it gets a lot less steep.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Once you subtract $180/mo in gas, it gets a lot less steep.

After you add back in the cost of Electricity, the price of replacing the batteries when they die, rental cars when you actually need to go somewhere, hotel rooms when you get stranded waiting for it to charge, tow trucks when you run out of charge, opportunity cost because the you can't travel anywhere while your waiting for you piece of shit electric car to charge, etc...

The price sky rockets back up again.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[DaHat]

Only if you are paying that much a month in gas... I try not to... and I drive what the state calls an SUV.

Heck, even over 5 years, the savings is *only* 10k, which only brings the effective price of the 40k car down to 30k... which is still more than most of us are willing/able to pay for something newer.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[prelelat]

Tax breaks are an incentive to new and upcoming technology. It's great when it's helping a company like Tesla innovate an electric car. Giving tax breaks to companies that are well established is laughable. In the case of Tesla it's still a question of if they can keep increasing the tech at this level and how much of a benefit is it going to be to everyone. The gov. funds research in this exact same vein. Instead of investing in the company and taking a stock and risk being called a socialist they instead get to fund and support it with tax breaks. It advances science.

Not only that but as JeffAll said as well it keeps jobs local as well as keeps such a major project strictly American.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Ralph Wiggam]

Moving a factories costs a fortune. Giving tax breaks in exchange for job creation is standard practice at the state and local levels across the US.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Ralph Wiggam]

Electricity is cheap. I pay $30/month for my car to go 1000 miles. How far does your car go for 30 bucks?

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[hawguy]

No, it's bad when Tesla gets a tax break and it's bad when Airbus and Boeing get tax breaks. Businesses should not get tax breaks, ever, for any reason.

Why not? Any business tax is equivalent to a tax on citizens since anything that increases the cost of doing business (including taxes), gets passed along to consumers and employees through increased product costs or lower salaries. Many would argue that business taxes shouldn't exist at all.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Twinbee]

The Model S starts out at around $64000, not $90 grand for a kick off.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[hawguy]

Only if you are paying that much a month in gas... I try not to... and I drive what the state calls an SUV.

Heck, even over 5 years, the savings is *only* 10k, which only brings the effective price of the 40k car down to 30k... which is still more than most of us are willing/able to pay for something newer.

Maybe *most* of us won't pay $30K for a car, but the average new car price in the USA is $31K so that brings it within reach of a lot of potential buyers.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Carnivore]

The Fremont factory is enormous. They're only using a fraction of it for Model S production, with plans to activate more of it for Model E, etc.

Given that they own a building that exists and will support their needs for the near- to medium-future, it's unlikely that they would move.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[bob_super]

We get it back on taxes every (small) Tesla employee pays, every local supplier, and even the sandwich shop down the street.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Lazydriver]

Maybe so, but it's also an investment into a technology that will hopefully be extremely popular someday. It also cuts down on nitrogen oxide, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide emissions in the long run. Imagine if the skies weren't hazy anymore because there weren't (in the case of the bay area, where these types of cars are most popular) ten million people riding around with smog machines. You'd be able to see the other side of the bay without a yellow haze. And it would slow global warming and the associated (arguably worse) acidification of the oceans. The same investment in technology these buyers make also improves battery research, so your battery can hold more of a charge. That means perhaps someday only recharging your smartphone once a week.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[prelelat]

wow you are looking for things to rag on. If you live in an area with a tesla charge station it free to charge in about 30 minutes. If you don't it's not that expensive compared to a regular car. Which you can charge while you are at home. Unless you are traveling in excess of 160miles a day I find it unlikely on average that you will ever need to stop somewhere and charge your car.

Batteries die and it's a huge huge huge expense this is the only one I see relevant in your post.

If you are going somewhere in a tesla S it can reach up to 300miles and there are more and more tesla charging stations popping up. Usually somewhere close to services like food. Most people typically get out and stretch for a bit every few hundred miles. I'm not saying you might have to stop and rest when you don't want to, or that right now you might end-up somewhere that you have to stay over night to charge your car, but that's going to be fade fast if Tesla is able to keep building infrastructure for their cars.

You ran out of a charge on the road, you are just as likely to run out of gas. I think it's easier to find a plugin than a gas station. I think the charge for a tow truck is the same regardless.

Bottom line the only thing that will not be fixed with time(infrastructure and charge times at charging stations) is the battery is going to die. Tesla has been looking at ways to fix this as well. Tesla cars right now are kind of in a beta testing mode, they work, they are cool and most of the flaws have fixes set out for them that need to be implemented. It's going to take time but outside of a battery replacement I don't think having one in the future is going to cost as much as you think.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[tlhIngan]

Only if Tesla stays in CA after the free money handouts stop and the "pay back to the people who made you rich and successful" part starts. If they up and move their primary manufacturing centers to the next sucker --- oops, I mean, "forward-looking business friendly state" --- to offer them free money/power/impunity once CA's generosity runs out, that mini-Detroit could end up wherever the leader in the national race to the bottom happens to be.

Except setting up a brand new factory from scratch is expensive. Tesla is in their current location because Toyota, the previous owner, wanted out. So Tesla bought the entire factory for a good price with equipment in it.

The cost to move means having to either re-buy all the equipment again, or move the equipment. Both are very expensive options with the latter involving a whole system shutdown.

Boeing, despite having moved their head office, still makes planes in WA state where their head office used to be, because all the expertise and equipment is there.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[AK Marc]

Did you realize that the "batteries" sold are not batteries, but battery packs, with electronics and cooling and such? Yes, the actual batteries may be made elsewhere, but the battery packs may still be made there. There's more to an automotive battery pack than a pile of 10,000 AA LiON batteries.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mythosaz]

The national average for gas this year was about $3.60, and your average 20-54 year old drives 15,000 a year.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ohim/onh00/bar8.htm

The average new car gets 33mpg, and the average new truck gets 25. That's $136/mo in gas, or $180/mo in gas.

The average car on the road in 2010 - the one you'd be replacing with a Tesla got 23mpg, or $195/mo. Considering it's been creeping up by a mile or so a year, let's call the average savings over replacing the average car on the road, driving the average number of miles for an employed active driver $180/mo.
http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/national_transportation_statistics/html/table_04_23.html

That $180/mo in gas likely costs about $25 in electricity, depending on your grid prices.

You save on average about $155/mo in fuel by switching to electric vehicles.

You can get a Leaf for about 22k after tax breaks, which means you don't break even on fuel costs for well after the life of the car (12 years), but you you do break even over a Nissan Versa Note (same car body) in 4.3 years.

And, you know, you get to be smug about it in the process...

...and here, I get to save a half an hour twice a day for getting to ride (alone) in the car pool lane. :)

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would you write "that you don't break even on fuel costs for well ....." ?
If you bought a gas car or an electric car for $31,000 dollars but you were saving $155/month with the electric car wouldn't you be breaking even from day 1 ?
If you want to see something interesting calculate the future value of $155/month investments, especially if managed in 4 payments, over 40 years with 7% rate.
$400K.

Thats enough to get you to buy electric if nothing else did. Or you can buy lottery tickets.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[aaarrrgggh]

Boeing, despite having moved their head office, still makes planes in WA state where their head office used to be, because all the expertise and equipment is there.

...for now. They want to move the 777X, and they split production with South Carolina.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[CrimsonAvenger]

You ran out of a charge on the road, you are just as likely to run out of gas. I think it's easier to find a plugin than a gas station.

Oddly, I've never been anywhere that I had to go more than a hundred miles without passing a few gas stations.

So I think it's unlikely I'll run out of gas at all....

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[ShanghaiBill]

While corporate welfare handouts are certainly "standard practice," that's not equivalent to "good practice"

Indeed. Tax breaks like this are a classic example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. Everybody does it, but everyone would be better off if nobody did it. Congress should use the commerce clause (legitimately in this case) to ban the practice. Or the courts should ban it as a violation of the Constitution's equal protection clause.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Cereal Box]

I think it's easier to find a plugin than a gas station.

Uh yeah, I doubt that.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[WillAffleckUW]

Very good point.

Note that the main problem with all electric vehicles is the power mix and cost depends on how electricity is generated.

Electricity in much of the West is from a mix of solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and hydroelectric power, which result in an e-gallon costing about 1/10th what a gallon of gas costs.

In areas with coal-fired electric we're starting to see (Economics studies) indications of coal and oil increasing in cost, making the comparative costs different and the climate change and pollution impacts also different. However, if you have home and work solar or wind power, you can always trickle charge the battery systems to ensure a near 100 percent green fuel, and since solar costs are dropping fast (cheaper than oil now, competitive with coal) this may change quickly.

Some relatives and friends of mine use all electric or mostly electric cars to - basically - pay nothing in gas (other than an annual gas engine assist "burn" for the mostly electric ones) and as a result "fill up their tanks" with cheap electrons. Even if they add costs for solar charging or buy "green" power mix from the utility (solar/wind/hydro mix) it still works out to around 1/8th the cost of gasoline.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[WillAffleckUW]

Tesla is building an I-5 corridor battery swap location chain from Vancouver BC Canada down to San Diego CA.

Which means if you live near the main highways in the True West, you never worry about not having a fresh battery in a Tesla.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[drinkypoo]

You can get a Leaf for about 22k after tax breaks, which means you don't break even on fuel costs for well after the life of the car (12 years),

I'd imagine that the range will be somewhat decreased, but if most Leafs which haven't been piloted into a tree (etc) aren't still operating in 12 years, I will be shocked. Hopefully not literally.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[master_kaos]

That's not the point, if you are wanting to travel 1000 miles all at one time then you would rent a car becuase it would not be economical to do that. if you are doing a 1000 mile trip every 2 weeks, a tesla is not for you

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[ChrisMaple]

Individual businesses should not get tax breaks because it gives one business an "unfair" advantage over others. It's an open invitation for bribery and corruption. It's Fascism. It's a risk, and government shouldn't be taking risks with our money.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[anubi]

California will still make lots of money even if they don't tax Tesla one thin dime.

What California needs right now - more than anything else - are companies who are funneling money into paychecks and will provide the State with a database of who is getting paid, and how much.

Do not kill the goose which is trying to lay a golden egg. Sure, you can kill the goose with tax law, but in doing so, you forfeit all those eggs it was going to lay.

The streets of California are already littered with the carcasses of killed geese.

Many done in by the pen of the FTB. The parts that used to run the goose now are on welfare.

From what I can see, all this economic malaise we have had is a result of both poorly applied taxation and mismanagement of resources. We tax productivity and reward sheer gluttony/greed. So far, the FED has kept the economy "growing" by dropping interest rates over the last 30 years or so. For 30 years, the FED has been able to keep dropping the interest rates to keep liquidity in the economy so merchants could brag around 10% year-over-year growth in sales receipts, making their stock look good, as well as real-estate people carrying on over increases in home price. By lowering interest rates, bankers have been able to support increasing home price - but look at the charts.... how much leeway do the bankers have to keep this charade going?

Look what happened the last time Bernake bumped the rate up a bit. Google found lots of charts. They all say the same thing. Our economic engine is now running on fumes.

Look at the charts. This cannot go on much longer. We are now at the end of travel. The wolf is nearing the door, and we have outsourced way too much of the vital resources which kept our USA strong. The global elite will fare well, unless riots take them out. The rest of us are kinda caught in the mess.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Dahamma]

Except Tesla is *profitable* and wants to expand and *increase* that profitability. $35M will be peanuts to CA in a couple of years if Tesla keep growing at their current pace and paying corporate taxes (not to mention the job creation, cash infusion into the CA economy, etc).

So, yeah, wow, that $1 per CA citizen tax break is going to be a disaster...

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Dahamma]

Yup, the Lion cells are made by Panasonic in Japan, but the packs are assembled in Palo Alto, CA.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Dahamma]

Why would you wait overnight to charge? A Tesla can be charged in an hour at a Supercharger, which they are putting up all over the place on both coasts. If you are already planning on driving 16+ hours in a single day, then what's another 2-3? Or for those who want to enjoy their long drives (electric or gasoline car, either way) break it up into two days and it's even less of an issue.

Oh, and that's $30 for 1000 miles in a big luxury car that can seat 7 if necessary and go from 0-60 in 4 seconds if you feel like it. Let's see the piece of shit econobox you claim can get over 50 miles a gallon do either of those.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[pepty]

That and assembly jobs start at $12-$16 an hour; they wouldn't save much by moving to a red state.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Luckyo]

The least efficient coal plant is still massively more efficient in terms of pollutants and CO2 emitted per power generated than most efficient automotive internal combustion engine found in road cars of today.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[FuegoFuerte]

Yeah... because multi-sourcing major components of the 787 dreamsaster has worked out SO well for them. People keep talking about Alan Mulally's future in connection with Microsoft, but if anyone's gonna poach him from Ford it *should* be Boeing. A lot of heads need to roll over in Chicago to get that company back on track.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[jo_ham]

I think it's easier to find a plugin than a gas station.

Uh yeah, I doubt that.

You doubt that there are more electrical plug sockets in the USA than gas stations?

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[semi-extrinsic]

And it would slow global warming and the associated (arguably worse) acidification of the oceans.

[citation needed]. Better make that "Life cycle analysis needed". I agree with your points regarding reducing local emissions, which is very important in many cities, but I haven't seen a single complete life cycle analysis of any current production electric vehicle that gets significantly better than an equivalent gasoline powered car.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[TWiTfan]

Moving a factories costs a fortune.

Don't worry. There is always some other state or country willing to foot the bill (preferably one where the governor will call out the state guard to bust any unions for you).

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[TWiTfan]

they wouldn't save much by moving to a red state

A red state means never having to deal with unions ever again.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[TWiTfan]

Supercharger, which they are putting up all over the place on both coasts

According to their own website they now have a total of 42, most of them in California--with vast swaths of the mid-west, southeast, and northwest having none.

Re: Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Ralph Wiggam]

My Nissan Leaf is $35k.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[pepty]

Tesla doesn't deal with unions in CA either: a lot of the workers used to be UAW but so far there has been no unionization at Fremont. Things can always change though: looks like Volkwagen may become a union shop in Tennessee, though under the German model as opposed to UAW.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[WillAffleckUW]

No, cogenerating coal plants are more efficient.

But we don't use those.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Luckyo]

Even the old coal plants from 50s are far more efficient than best available automotive ICUs. Reason lies in the core design issues and economics of scale.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mythosaz]

Untrue.

In places where coal is used heavily in grid power (say, Oklahoma), a car that gets about 34! miles per gallon compares with a Leaf or Tesla for emissions, once you factor in overhead for battery production and disposal.

In places like the California or the Pacific Northwest, you'd need a car that gets 78! MPG to compete with electric cars powered by the grid and built with "dirty" batteries.

Page 12 has a nice map.
http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf

I've seen a few other reports, all which include different values for battery production/disposal overhead and a few that rank the pacific northwest higher than California, but the one linked above is pretty "middle of the road" with regard to their values.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mcgrew]

I haven't been in an airplane since 1987. Why am I forced to subsidize the rich fucks who fly weekly? Airline travel isn't much different than luxury cars; how often do most middle class people fly?

And how about that mortgage deduction that the rich and middle class get that the poor don't, since they rent?

I could think of more if I wasn't drinking. Alcohol never raised anybody's IQ.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mcgrew]

rental cars when you actually need to go somewhere

With a 400 mile range it will take me from here to Chicago or St Louis with no problem. It's been years since I took a trip longer than a hundred miles.

tow trucks when you run out of charge

I have roadside assistance as part of my insurance. You know when I use it most? When the battery in my gasoline car dies and I can't find a jump. Once or twice when I was stuck in the snow.

opportunity cost because the you can't travel anywhere while your [sic] waiting for you [sic] piece of shit electric car to charge

Again, it's been years since I put that many miles on a car in one day, and it will charge while I'm sleeping. Besides, Teslas have charging stations that will fill you up in 30 minutes, not that much longer than to fill a gasoline car at a crowded gas station... hell, I've waited in line that long at the checkout counter.

So... which oil company do you work for, AC?

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Luckyo]

So basically it's an attempt to stack overhead costs in a way that would make electric car look bad.

How original. As you obviously cannot do the same with the actual burning process, you try to throw shit hoping some will stick.

Hint: Dollar costs do not reflect efficiency nor pollution/CO2 emissions.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[rkinch]

I pay $30/month ...

No you don't.

What is the amortized true cost of your battery life.

Even if the electricity was free, it will never be cheap if it comes through a battery. Certainly never cheaper than hydrocarbon fuel.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[metaforest]

there is a lot of other electrical and electronics that turn those raw cells into a viable bettery pack..... you moron!

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[metaforest]

If you live on a small island.... the Tesla is a fantastic car. It is much cheaper than running a ICE for the same duty cycle.... my clients love theirs.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mythosaz]

It's not dollar costs, you moron; It's the environmental cost of the sort of fuels used to power the electrical grid.

In places in the middle of the country, they pretty much just light coal on fire day and night to generate grid electricity. In those places, a "zero emissions" car has an emissions footprint similar to a car that gets 40mpg because (a) making lithium batteries was real ugly, and (b) lighting coal on fire to generate electricity has a footprint.

In places where the grid is powered by more (carbon) green technologies (solar, wind, nuclear, hydro),

I own and drive a leaf. I took a good look at estimates from both the anti-electric and pro-electric zealots on how much pollution the battery process provided, and I take them with a grain of salt. The UOCS report uses a fairly middle-of-the-road number on the battery overhead.

...but even if you ignore the battery overhead, grid electricity doesn't come carbon free, which is why the state-by-state breakdown includes numbers based on the type of fuels burned.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Luckyo]

Yes, because these are solely spent on cars, and if cars didn't exist, we wouldn't need the electricity.

Seriously, head and ass. They should not be inside of one another. Normally.

And I drive a gasoline powered car by the way. And about 40% of electricity I buy is generated from coal according to my invoice. So what?

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Dahamma]

Doesn't have to be a small island - if you live in California (especially the Bay Area) it's a fantastic car. There are plenty of superchargers up and down the coast, many companies (and even stores, like Fry's) now have chargers in their parking lots, and it's great for 95% of the daily commutes and a significant number of day trips (from the Bay Area you can easily go to Monterrey, Santa Cruz, Napa, etc). And let's face it, this is a $90k car after a few options, and most people who drop $90k on a car have another car (often an SUV) they can use for the long road trips devoid of charging stations.

Anyway, I agree it's a fantastic *luxury* car, but it's definitely only "cheaper" to run if you compare it to other $90k cars.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[mythosaz]

*sigh* Why you're being so intentionally obtuse is beyond me.

Your car burns gas. It puts pollution into the air at the rate of the average gas car plus or minus your fuel efficiency compared to the average.

My car burns grid electricity. It puts pollution into the air at a rate that depends on how my grid electricity is generated plus some overhead for the environmental cost of the batteries over their lifetime.

At the top of all of this WillAffleckUW started talking about the price (wallet) of the fuel, and you rebutted with the efficiency of burning coal versus the efficiency of internal combustion engines, stupidly, or ignorantly saying that:

The least efficient coal plant is still massively more efficient in terms of pollutants and CO2 emitted per power generated than most efficient automotive internal combustion engine found in road cars of today.

...which is completely untrue. Burning nothing but coal to power the grid, a Tesla and Leaf would pollute more than a modern high-mileage car.

Fortunately, more and more of our grid is moving from coal and CNG to solar, hydro, etc.

Re:Thanks, California taxpayers!

[Luckyo]

Why you are so exceptionally clueless is beyond me. Automotive ICE efficiency is several TIMES worse than that of a major power plant burner.

As a result, how electricity is generated is largely irrelevant for the subject. It will still be always better than automotive ICE, even if it's a coal plant from the fifties.

It's a simply fact of both efficiency of using steam turbines vs pistons/wankel and economy of size.

Why shouldn't it?

[fisf]

Unless you value your environment nothing, why shouldn't there be a financial reward for companies that reduce the harm on it, either directly or indirectly?

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"For the rich" is still a valid objection, pending future decreases in battery costs. However, your concerns about manufacturing process and moving energy use around are ignorant trolling. An electric car uses vastly less energy overall than an internal combustion engine (heat engines being limited by thermodynamics and material properties to poor net efficiencies). Even with "worst case" electrical power sources (burning fossil fuels to run generators), the full cycle efficiency of an electric car is far better than gas vehicles. Electric infrastructure also allows transitioning to more clean energy sources as they become available --- your car gets "cleaner" as wind/solar/tidal/geothermal/etc. power sources are rolled out. The up-front manufacturing processes are (a) similar to existing gas cars, (b) do not dominate environmental impacts over a car's lifetime, and (c) the "extra stuff" (batteries) not in regular cars is highly recyclable.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing wrong with holding dirty industries accountable for the environmental damage they cause. Should they get a free pass on externalizing costs, granting them an economic distortion that gives them an unfair advantage? You as the tax payer ultimately foot the bill for environmental damage through cleanup costs, reduced quality of living, increased healthcare costs.

Tax breaks for green industries aren't handouts. They're just leveling the playing feild.

For that mater Tesla is the leader and major innovator in the new industry of electric vehicle drive trains. Why would California not want them there?

I know a lot of you conservative cock guzzlers are going to bitch and whinge and apologize for polluters. Shut up. Just shut the fuck up. We're tired of your shit. Some of us that have lived in California have lived long enough to remember what it was like before Cali upset the apple cart and implemented real, tough emission standards many years ago. (Yeah, you fucksticks would not shut up then either) Southern California was a nast, hazy, smogy toxic soup. It's hundreds of times better today. Yes, the problem can be reversed.

Want further proof? Fire up google and look for pictures of big cities in China. Smoke so thick it looks like london fog. Children with lung cancer. Everyone outside with face masks and respirators.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, they only market to the rich, which means the change in the carbon footprint generated by cars will be minimal at best.

Except that their plan is and has always been "sell cars to people in this income bracket, get money, use money to design/build cars to people in next bracket down, rinse and repeat".

Second, it doesn't take in to account the manufacturing process of the cars

Is there any evidence that their manufacturing is any more polluting that that of other cars?

or the electrical sources used to charge the batteries. Pushing the pollution off somewhere else is not a solution, it's just shifting the blame.

What you call "pushing the pollution off somewhere else" is in reality consolidating the sources of pollution, which makes it more manageable.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[mythosaz]

Even assuming fairly bad battery production overheads, you pollute at roughly the same rate as a 50mpg car while using electric from the grid as it stands.

California has a fairly green grid, so you'd need a 60mpg car to compete.
The Pacific Northwest is even better - needing nearly 70mpg to compete.
Oklahoma and other coal-burners are worse, and you only need 40mpg to compete.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Second, it doesn't take in to account the manufacturing process of the cars, or the electrical sources used to charge the batteries. Pushing the pollution off somewhere else is not a solution, it's just shifting the blame.

Electric cars actually do better in terms of reducing pollution and energy usage versus normal cars. You should read the UCLA's electric car lifecycle analysis:

http://www.environment.ucla.edu/media_IOE/files/BatteryElectricVehicleLCA2012-rh-ptd.pdf

Even if you count the energy and emissions costs of extracting resources for the batteries, manufacturing of the batteries, and shipping the car, the electric car's lifecycle sees it using 40% less energy, and incurring 50% less emissions than a comparable conventional car. Just because you anti-electric car idiots refuse to read up on the facts, that doesn't give you the right to go spreading misinformation.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Lazydriver]

That's shortsighted. They're making a profit off of electric cars by selling them to the rich. That's good, because there's a financial incentive for increasing the size of the customer base: their test market liked a very well designed and powerful electric car that didn't look like the moon lander. As for shifting the pollution, at worse (even if it is 1:1), you're getting rid of respiratory problems within an urban area. Secondly, you could theoretically charge these on your own solar grid. Thirdly, the amount of energy used by batteries is /used/ versus wasted. Something on the order of 20% of the energy from combustion actually gets used to move your car - the rest gets wasted as heat and carbon dioxide. So it's still at least five times more efficient. Will it save the environment? By itself at this time, no. But if this technology becomes popular, it may single handedly stop the significant rise in global temperatures and acidification of the oceans /and/ the solution would be a market driven one. What's not to love?

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Blanket claims"? You didn't read the research either, did you? The paper already listed all its inputs for vehicle parts manufacturing under Appendix C. Now, if you have any evidence that the paper neglected to include any manufactured parts that alter the paper's quantified conclusions in a non-trivial fashion, then present it. Otherwise, shut the hell up and stop claiming non-existent weakness on the part of the research.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[confused one]

Second, it doesn't take in to account ... the electrical sources used to charge the batteries. Pushing the pollution off somewhere else is not a solution, it's just shifting the blame.

Big electrical generation plants are considerably more efficient at energy conversion than a typical gasoline or diesel engine used in automobiles

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[skiflyer]

Thanks for the link, I've been looking for data like that. Any idea if any one has made similar comparisons to some of the hydrogen fuel cell concepts?

It's great to see that the electric cars are beating up the gas cars by a nice margin already, but I just have a hard time believing that heavy metal batteries are the best we can do.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Chalnoth]

Tesla needs much larger manufacturing capacity to even attempt to market less expensive cars. There's a reason they started with a high-end sports car, then moved to a somewhat cheaper luxury sedan: volume. Things like this which help Tesla to increase their manufacturing capacity help to pave the way towards them producing higher-volume, lower-cost cars.

But more than that, renewable base power generation is an easier nut to crack than biofuels. Especially with electric cars which, through smart grids, can be used to help smooth out the unreliability of renewable power sources. No, electric cars on their own don't do all that much to reduce our overall carbon footprint. But they are a piece of the puzzle in moving towards cleaner energy.

In the mean time, I'm also reasonably-certain that less carbon is emitted from the required electrical power generation than from burning fossil fuels in an internal combustion engine, even if the power source is coal plants (the large scale of coal plants lets them be a lot more efficient).

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[semi-extrinsic]

However, your concerns about manufacturing process and moving energy use around are ignorant trolling.

Here, let me point you towards a recent article in the Journal of Industrial Ecology which shows that the production of batteries for the longest-range Tesla S emits roughly as much CO2 as driving 50 000 miles (depending on the car you compare with).

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[semi-extrinsic]

Is there any evidence that their manufacturing is any more polluting that that of other cars?

If you say "other electric cars", perhaps no. But it is well known that production of electric cars is much more polluting than production of ICE cars. See e.g. this recent peer-reviewed article.

Re:Why shouldn't it?

[Anonymous Coward]

As a matter of fact, I do. Refer to the Argonne National Laboratory's GREET model:

http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/378.PDF

Surprisingly, the results are something of a mixed bag when compared to hybrids. I think you'll be most interested to read the graphs starting at page 81. Lifetime energy use is comparable, and emissions are a give and take in a lot of categories, though they do end up with a narrow overall lead against hybrids in overall greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the paper doesn't compare fuel cell vehicles directly against electric cars, but you can get an idea of the directional results by looking at the comparison against hybrids, and gauging that against the UCLA's results.

So let me get this straight...

[lxs]

Big corporations are evil because they don't pay their taxes unless it's our pet company in which case it's all wine and roses.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[SirGarlon]

I think you've articulated the fundamental problem in today's tax policies very succinctly.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the state guaranteed the transaction occurred with neither party killing the other, it built roads to allow the two parties to more easily meet, it paid their education (not valid for US) so both knew how to read the contract, it paid for the health (not valid for the US?) needs of both parties when they got ill... I could go on. If that deal isn't good enough for you, you should move to a better country like Somalia and finally enjoy the benefits of a stateless society.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[DaHat]

Because the state guaranteed the transaction occurred with neither party killing the other

Last time I purchased something in California... I do not recall there being a bomb proof barrier between me and the sales person that had been built by the state.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[hawguy]

Because the state guaranteed the transaction occurred with neither party killing the other

Last time I purchased something in California... I do not recall there being a bomb proof barrier between me and the sales person that had been built by the state.

Yet, unless you arranged the purchase over Craigslist and met the seller in a bad part of town (in which case you're probably not paying any taxes anyway), law enforcement and regulation from the state and federal government has helped ensure that the clerk at the convenience store is not going to hit you over the head with a baseball bat and take your money, and you can walk into a huge big-box store and not worry that the roof is going to fall on your head - but if something like that does happen, then you'll be relying on government to find and punish that sales clerk, or to dig you out of the rubble from the store after a freak snowstorm made the roof collapse

In some countries you may pay less (or no taxes), but can't count on the general freedom and safety that we rely on every day as we go about our lives.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[lgw]

You've clearly never driven on California's roads (unlighted freeways with big potholes through major urban centers - really California?). Plus I suspect the Tesla plant mostly uses the rail line it backs up against.

Anyhow, the portion of taxes that goes to roads and police and such is a tiny fraction that no one feels bad about paying. At the federal government level its about 14% of spending, and it's similarly low at the local level. Alameda county, where the Tesla plant is, needs to spend roughly 100% of it's tax revenue on funding pensions, and borrows additional money for it's alleged road spending. The City of Fremont finally saw the light (literally) about a year ago and scaled back pensions so that they could actually budget a few bucks to keep the street lights on.

tl;dr: the roads and police are not a significant government expense.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[Mousit]

In and of itself, not paying taxes is not what makes corporations (big or small) evil. It has much more to do with what they use it for and how they go about it.

Exxon and GE, as examples, are rather famous for not paying anything on their recent profit/income taxes (or even getting billions in rebates, in GE's case) while at the same time raking in world-record-breaking profits, and then taking that extra cash and simply lining the executives' pockets by paying out huge bonuses. They also downplay or even attempt to hide their lack of taxpaying, or go to extreme creative-accounting lengths to hide their money so as to avoid taxation.

Tesla (and California)--at least in this particular case--is being very public about this tax windfall, letting everyone know they're being done a favor. And instead of just paying bonuses to the top brass or otherwise pocketing the money and walking away, they're putting it right back into development and product output (yes I'm aware they do profit on sales from that increased output, but that gets taxed separately anyway). They're literally using this tax break to be more productive.

There's a pretty fundamental difference there.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[ChrisMaple]

Except for superhighways, in the US most roads are either

• paths established by wearing a trail between 2 places, with upgrading to pavement by the government brought about by public pressure
• privately created by developers who were allowed to develop only if they built the roads, then turned them over for no payment to the government.

Re:So let me get this straight...

[ChrisMaple]

Company owners that intend to do well build businesses that will last at least long enough to make them rich. That tends to prevent them from discouraging repeat business by bludgeoning their customers or building unsafe stores. It is the self interest of capitalists, not the heavy hand of government, that protects customers.
FWIW, the last time I heard of a roof collapse caused by snow burden, it was a government building.

Great News

[DiSKiLLeR]

This is great news for me and my shares in TSLA. :D

Re:Great News

[Twinbee]

The stock price went down a little actually today so far.

Re:Great News

[lgw]

Tesla's market cap is 25% of Ford's. I really wish them the best, but the stock already prices in insane growth from where they are now.

Re:Great News

[confused one]

daily variation is not important, long term trending is.

Re:Great News

[Twinbee]

Yes, I know that, but I replied because one might expect the news to make Tesla shares shoot up (the market would account for long term as well as short term, so the stock price would reflect that).

Horrah!!

[Capt James McCarthy]

Another business that can't survive without tax payer money to help keep the costs down on a vehicle that only wealthy folks can afford. Brilliant.

Re:Horrah!!

[zlives]

hey now... it takes money to bribe the government.

Re:Horrah!!

[AK Marc]

Like Boeing? They were offered about $9 billion.

Re:Horrah!!

[magarity]

RTFA - The state the company is located in is one of the few with the madness to tax manufacturing equipment. There's a policy guaranteed to help lower unemployment! /sarcasm. In this particular case they're not surviving on taxpayer money - they're getting a sensible exemption from an absurd policy.

Re:Horrah!!

[tlambert]

Another business that can't survive without tax payer money to help keep the costs down on a vehicle that only wealthy folks can afford. Brilliant.

At least this time, we got off for 1/30th of what Solyndra cost us, and we get jobs out of it.

Re:Horrah!!

[CanHasDIY]

Like Boeing? They were offered about $9 billion.

Yea, just like that.

Two wrongs don't make a right.

Re:Horrah!!

[zlives]

the policy exists to help transition manufacturing to areas where labor can be more easily exploited. Guess they are now realizing that perhaps that was not a wise long term policy. but don't worry this sensibility will soon pass.

Re:Horrah!!

[Bacon Bits]

The last step in making technology cheap enough for everyone is not something fresh out of R&D. It's something established that isn't cheap enough for everyone being refined and perfected and improved upon to suddenly be cheap enough for everyone. IBM and DEC didn't start out with commodity hardware. They made mainframes, then they made minicomputers, and then they made PCs and commodity servers.

This is American technology built with American manufacturing. In this day and age, that alone is exciting. This is electric cars -- not hybrids -- and they don't look like a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe. And the company is working to change nationwide infrastructure as well, and busting up the dealer middlemen that artificially inflate our auto prices. Fuck yes, I'd be happy to give them a tax break. They're actually doing something that might just benefit me as a citizen, a consumer, and an Earthling.

Re:Horrah!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty much every business that can has already left the state of California. We are left with service industry and tourism jobs that don't come anywhere close to a living wage, especially when you consider the real estate costs.

Re:Horrah!!

[0123456]

Right. No one can afford the real estate costs; that's why they are so high.

No, they're high because people can still get mortgages that will bankrupt them when and if interest rates ever rise back to sensible levels.

How many people could afford those houses if they had to pay cash?

Re:Horrah!!

[AK Marc]

States rights is good, until a state does something we don't like. Also, tax breaks are bad, but we'll whine louder when it's a company/CEO we don't like.

Re:Horrah!!

[hawguy]

Pretty much every business that can has already left the state of California. We are left with service industry and tourism jobs that don't come anywhere close to a living wage, especially when you consider the real estate costs.

San Francisco is practically a wasteland these days - all of the tech companies that have no fixed assets thus can move easily have already left. You can stand in the middle of 101 at 8:30am and not see a single car for hours. Real estate has never been so low - landlords are offering 6 months free rent to anyone that comes, and multiple landlords are getting into reverse bidding wars to try to win you over with low prices.

Yeah, all of the businesses in California have packed up and left, leaving nothing but wildlife behind - which explains why Coyotes are moving into San Francisco

Re:Horrah!!

[Jeremi]

Another business that can't survive without tax payer money to help keep the costs down on a vehicle that only wealthy folks can afford. Brilliant.

And above is another example of someone who can't think past next quarter's profit report.

Fortunately, there are people who can, and they've come to the realization that transitioning away from 100% reliance on fossil fuels is a good idea, and will benefit everyone in the long run.

Re:Horrah!!

[gander666]

My company is moving me to Silly valley, and I will be able to comfortably afford a mortgage. Yes, it is a LOT more than my house here in Phoenix, but the pay bump will easily cover the delta in payments.

Re:Horrah!!

[Algae_94]

No, they're high because people can still get mortgages that will bankrupt them when and if interest rates ever rise back to sensible levels.

This is assuming they have adjustable rate mortgages. Many of them probably do, but they are fools.

Re:Horrah!!

[confused one]

Don't know why you're being modded insightful. This is a common way for municipalities and states to incentivize companies to expand, stay in their current location, or move to a new location. It's common practice. The assumption is that the tax revenue will be recouped through secondary and tertiary sources: suppliers building plants and warehouses near the factory, increased employment resulting in increases in local property taxes and increased sales at surrounding businesses, etc.

Re:Horrah!!

[ChrisMaple]

The 9 billion was a government bribe to Boeing to protect the unions that would otherwise have driven Boeing to union-free states in the American southeast. Typical of government action, a huge amount of money is being spent to provide a much smaller benefit to a special-interest-group.

Re:Horrah!!

[FuegoFuerte]

To protect the unions? It would be nice if life were really so simple, but face it - it's not! I've lived in the Seattle area most of my life, and even though our economy is more diversified than it used to be, it's still heavily dependent on Boeing. At one time, the entire economy of the area rose and fell with Boeing, now it's held a little more steady with companies like Amazon and Microsoft, however Boeing is still a major employer here. When layoffs happen or jobs move to other states, we still feel it in all parts of the local economy - unemployed people don't buy as much fast food, they don't buy as many electronic products, they don't pay for private music lessons for their kids, they don't buy musical instruments for their kids, they don't buy new cars, they put off normal maintenance on the cars they have, they don't visit the ski areas, and they don't pay for their kids to go to university. So, most sectors of the economy start to suffer, and tax revenue falls drastically. Sometimes a bit of an investment in the form of tax breaks serves to keep the economy strong and pays off hugely over the longer term as local jobs are protected.

Technically, I'm against tax breaks for businesses, but only because I'm against taxes for businesses, both large and small. Businesses large and small are job creators, without them none of us have an income, and yet our governments treat them as a revenue source, taking money that could be used to create more jobs. As a result, we have high unemployment rates and small businesses shutting down because the tax burden has become too heavy, and big business trying to make due with fewer employees than they should, raising employee stress levels far beyond what's healthy. As much as I don't like paying taxes, I think it would be far better to raise personal taxes and reduce or eliminate business taxes, to encourage job creation.

Oh yeah, and Tesla. Now I'm not off-topic. :)

Re:Horrah!!

[Monoman]

You just don't get it. They need to keep the wealthy folks going so they can employ the poor. If we run out of rich employers we will all be out of work. ;-)

Oh thank christ

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's throw money at the company that does nothing but produce luxury cars for the ultra-wealthy. Fuck you government, and fuck you Tesla.

Re:Oh thank christ

[couchslug]

"Luxury" funds early adoption of tech when it's expensive. The cost drops later. At one time all automobiles were luxury purchases.

A computer user above all should understand how that works.

Customers whose purchases make high performance video cards profitable to develop come to mind as examples.

Re:Oh thank christ

[Twinbee]

Yeah and our pitchforks also go to the early companies and adoptors of SSDs, LCD displays, washing machines, and more! If only they hadn't produced for them for the rich, then we wouldn't have.... er... also.. been able to affor.... oh wait.

Re:Oh thank christ

[LordLimecat]

We should subsidize SSDs with taxpayer money, is what youre saying. Works for me.

Re:Oh thank christ

[Areyoukiddingme]

Undoubtedly South Korea already is, since Samsung manufactures SSDs now.

More corporate lobbyism

[Anonymous Coward]

Regulate and tax the hell out of companies, then when they start going bust as a result or just leaving the state, start handing out big subsidies (to the ones who lobby the most) to get some back. Wonderful. California bankrupt in how many years ?

Models...

[SeanBlader]

Surprised no one posted that Tesla will have Models identified as S, E and X when these are all rolled out.

Re:Models...

[zlives]

finally geeks/nerds can complete the set and WIN

hey i resemble that remak

Re:Models...

[Carnivore]

They have actually registered the Model Y trademark.
http://www.teslamotors.com/forum/forums/s-e-x-y-trademarks

Re:Models...

[Algae_94]

Then we can finally assemble the sexy.exe Tesla malware

one advantage of a VAT

[Trepidity]

With a value-added tax (VAT), if you buy $150 of intermediary stuff, and use it to produce $200 of stuff, the tax is levied on $200 in total value, which is charged as $150 on the first sale and $50 to the second sale. If you buy equipment that is producing goods or more equipment, you only pay sales tax on the incremental value added, not on the cost of the machinery.

With a sales tax, you either charge on both sales for the full amount, in which case a $200 product has paid sales tax on $350 worth of sales in this example, or you do special-case exemptions, such as exempting "manufacturing equipment" from sales tax entirely, as some states do. Sales taxes are also more brittle because since the entire tax on charged on the final retail transaction, it encourages black-market no-sales-tax sales.

Re:one advantage of a VAT

[Trepidity]

Just Say No! (alas too many people fear income tax)

Yeah, I think it comes down to that. I've lived in Texas at times, and it's a huge point of pride that there is no income tax in Texas. Of course, it still needs a budget to provide basic government services. So there are very high property taxes, moderate but recently increased sales taxes, and a recently introduced corporate tax (called the "franchise tax" in local lingo). Those are all in several ways actually worse than an income tax, but they "aren't an income tax", so politicians and voters prefer them.

Get it straight?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? "A cut of business transactions between two independent parties" describes nearly all taxes.

Re:Get it straight?

[ChrisMaple]

Property taxes. Capitations. Coincidentally (?) these are the proper taxes to fund the only proper functions of government, the protection of people and their property.

Secret plan

[Anonymous Coward]

Could it be that the US just wants get rid of the arab oil dependency by sponsoring tesla?

The Wealthy?

[CohibaVancouver]

Why is it if some guy in Arkansas drops $70K on a Ford F450 "dually" he's just a hard-working good ol' boy, but if someone in California buys a Tesla they're they wealthy elite? (I'd never spend over $30K on a car myself, but I just find the comparison interesting).

Re:The Wealthy?

[0123456]

Why is it if some guy in Arkansas drops $70K on a Ford F450 "dually" he's just a hard-working good ol' boy, but if someone in California buys a Tesla they're they wealthy elite?

Let me guess: the first is buying his pickup because he needs it for his job, while the second is buying his Tesla because he'd be embarrassed to be seen in a Civic?

Re:The Wealthy?

[Anonymous Coward]

How cute. People actually needing their truck for the job. That's the vast minority.

Re:The Wealthy?

[drinkypoo]

How cute. People actually needing their truck for the job. That's the vast minority.

The F-450 is sufficiently ungainly to where most people will not drive one for vanity. I do know of one F-450 pickup truck conversion, which has a shortened frame and a custom bed, but even it is regularly used for towing.

Re:The Wealthy?

[confused one]

A guy buying a truck for his job, isn't going to buy the $70k truck, he's going to spend $45-50k on an F450 (if and only if he actually needs that much payload capacity), to keep his costs down.

Re:The Wealthy?

[NeutronCowboy]

I see more than a few F-250s that don't have a spec of dirt on them, no equipment near them, wheels and shocks in a configuration completely unsuitable for doing any work. As a matter of fact, most of the trucks that I see that aren't directly used to carry landscaping or construction equipment have never been near any work or towing.

Evil is as evil does

[Anonymous Coward]

Big corporations are "evil" when they avoid paying for their externalities by corrupting our representatives through regulatory capture.

Not sure how this applies to WA state

[WillAffleckUW]

Here, we have no income state (Washington State), only sales tax.

And, most of our energy is a mix of hydroelectric, solar, and wind (yes, solar is very effective here).

While I think moving to all electric vehicles in green states like ours is a good thing, and cheaper than gas (about 1/10th the cost), not sure if they should get a sales tax exemption since the only people buying Tesla cars (which have a showroom 20 blocks south of me) are rich people who generally avoid paying even 1/3 as much percentage of tax as the other 99 percent of citizens that pay the bills.

Same goes for fleet purchases - note that education and state/municipal don't pay sales taxes (and never have).

In the flyover states

[Anonymous Coward]

In the flyover states, we have people who actually work for a living instead of going to some office building and pushing buttons on a keyboard to suck dollars out of those who work for a living. You know, we create things like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, shingles and lumber and drywall, Keep going to your office job and feeling valuable, I'll keep feeding you.

Re:The REAL advantage of a VAT

[dave420]

The same Europeans who got great public transport and infrastructure links out of the higher taxation, while the US is full of terrible roads most European countries would laugh at... Your point? Taxes pay for civilization.

Re:TFAFalcon is correct

[macpacheco]

Are you telling me those 6 scientists with impeccable reputation are stupid ?
For christ sakes !
I said 48 hours, but it was actually two tests around 100 hours each.
The energy generated had to either be nuclear or something in the wires.
Please read the report, then criticise the report in a coherent fashion.
It looks like you didn't read a single thing that wasn't what you wanted to see, "Anonymous Coward" !

For the rich...

[metaforest]

Ford was all about the rich back around 191x..... In less than 10 years he made cars for the middle and lower classes....

I see Tesla doing the same thing.... it has only been only 5 years... give it a rest.

There is a lot of hate around Tesla because Musk is upsetting the old applecart.... well that applecart needs to be upset.....

Or would you rather be hauling the family in a buggy pulled by horses.... if so, theres a place for you... in Pennsylvania.

What's the big deal?

[haruchai]

Tesla is designing, building & selling the most desired American car in decades, which has garnered awards & praise from numerous automotive experts.
What's all the bellyaching about? Even if they only manage to make cars for the next 5 yrs, the $34 million a drop in the bucket for the revenue from the ~75000 extra cars they would manufacture, probably not even 1%.

Tesla has 1000 factory workers producing 20,000 cars. Even if they only added 100 new workers @ $50k each, that's $5 million in additional salaries per year.
Ignoring the revenue from additional auto sales, the stimulus of that tax break to the local economy would be net positive in just a few years.