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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."

22 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 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.

    3. 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
    4. 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.

    5. 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?

    6. 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.

    7. 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.

    8. 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.

  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.

  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.

  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.

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    There are no loopholes. It's either legal or it's not.
    1. 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.

    2. 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.
    3. 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

  5. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 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).

  8. 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."
  9. Re:Oh thank christ by LordLimecat · · Score: 3, Insightful

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

  10. 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.