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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."

41 of 238 comments (clear)

  1. Thanks, California taxpayers! by TWiTfan · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    --
    The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
    1. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by grogdamighty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      My other sig is funny.
    2. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by AK+Marc · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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!

    3. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by amicusNYCL · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    5. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by mythosaz · · Score: 2

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

    6. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    7. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by Ralph+Wiggam · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    8. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by Carnivore · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

    9. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by tlhIngan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    10. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by AK+Marc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    11. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by mythosaz · · Score: 2

      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. :)

    12. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by master_kaos · · Score: 2

      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

    13. Re:Thanks, California taxpayers! by Dahamma · · Score: 2

      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.

  2. Why shouldn't it? by fisf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Why shouldn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "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.

    2. Re:Why shouldn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

    3. Re:Why shouldn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Why shouldn't it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

  3. So let me get this straight... by lxs · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:So let me get this straight... by SirGarlon · · Score: 2

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

      --
      [Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
    2. Re:So let me get this straight... by hawguy · · Score: 2

      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.

  4. Horrah!! by Capt+James+McCarthy · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
    1. Re:Horrah!! by zlives · · Score: 2

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

    2. Re:Horrah!! by magarity · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Horrah!! by CanHasDIY · · Score: 2

      Like Boeing? They were offered about $9 billion.

      Yea, just like that.

      Two wrongs don't make a right.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    4. Re:Horrah!! by Bacon+Bits · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

      --
      The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
    5. Re:Horrah!! by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      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?

    6. Re:Horrah!! by hawguy · · Score: 3, Funny

      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

    7. Re:Horrah!! by confused+one · · Score: 2

      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.

    8. Re:Horrah!! by ChrisMaple · · Score: 2

      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.

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    9. Re:Horrah!! by FuegoFuerte · · Score: 2

      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. :)

  5. Re:Great News by Twinbee · · Score: 2

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

    --
    Why OpalCalc is the best Windows calc
  6. Models... by SeanBlader · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  7. Re:Move to breeder reactors by tedgyz · · Score: 2

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

    --
    "No matter where you go, there you are." -- Buckaroo Banzai
  8. one advantage of a VAT by Trepidity · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  9. Re:Move to breeder reactors by dpilot · · Score: 2

    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.

    --
    The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
  10. The Wealthy? by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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).

  11. Re:Oh thank christ by couchslug · · Score: 5, Informative

    "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.

    --
    "This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
  12. Re:Oh thank christ by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  13. Re:Move to breeder reactors by macpacheco · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.