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Reno Selected For Tesla Motors Battery Factory
First time accepted submitter Mikenan writes Tesla has finally decided that it will build its battery "gigafactory" in Nevada, sources say. "That's a go, but they are still negotiating the specifics of the contract," a source within the Nevada's governor's office told CNBC Wednesday afternoon. The source noted that it could be a week before the deal is official. Nevada is planning a press conference Thursday in Carson City.
Now we know why Nevada was chosen.
CARson City.
Makes total sense.
WTF is a "gigafactory?"
Is it somehow different than any other kind of factory? Or is it a made-up word designed to satisfy some narcissists ego?
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Making money from "emissions credits" and "carbon credits". Constant need for taxpayer subsidies. Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't Tesla lose money on each car it manufactures? And only makes a profit when the cars are subsidized with "credits" and taxpayer money? Why is this company selling cars for less-than-profit at retail?
If it wasn't for the government connections this company wouldn't be able to generate a profit on its own. It needs tax breaks and emissions credits to survive. This is just someone who is politically connected getting the government to give his company favorable loans and lean on other corporations and tax them with penalties to assist a rival company. Is no one here bothered by the corruption? Or is it acceptable because of Elon Musk's political leanings?
Nevada; No corporate income tax. Far fewer and less effective environmental and labor pressure groups. How selfish. Who does this Elon think he is refusing to be suckered in with environmental rule waivers?
I suspect it's going to take a lot more of this kind of corporate profiteering before the bloom comes off the Telsa rose around here though, and my poor karma will suffer a lot more hits — because fanbois will be fanbois.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
They've broken this nation down with their backward ways.
If Texas had allowed Tesla to sell their cars without the dealership middleman, would the Giga-factory outcome played out differently ?
Tesla is making over 25% profit on every car sold. All of that money is going into growth and expansion. While they get emission credits, they don't rely on them since they are shrinking.
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I mean, I guess it's good that they're not manufacturing the batteries in China (batteries are heavy so I guess the shipping outweighs the labor savings) but it sounds like Tesla is just going to pocket a ton of tax credits and other stuff in exchange for putting a building of robot manufacturers in Nevada.
Say what you will, but the middle class needs work. We need something for the vast majority of people who aren't scientists, engineers or politicians to do. That used to be traditional assembly-line manufacturing. After that, it was the millions of people routing documents and reports around large corporations. This next wave of automation is going to put a real crimp on the middle class that it can't easily absorb. Unless people start paying full-salary wages for stupid stuff like rating cat videos or posting on social media, the traditional model of 2-kids-and-a-mortgage is out the window. For the low end, we need something like the steel mills and other factories that would employ thousands of workers in 3 shifts. And for the medium end, we need to preserve at least some of the "corporate drone" jobs. At the risk of sounding like a Luddite, it looks like there's nothing left for the middle of the economy -- it's going to split into ultra low end jobs like cleaning and food service, and high-end jobs like engineering, science, etc. (And I'm guessing management will reserve itself a place in the high end too.)
The problem is, without rolling back a lot of the benefits automation brings, I don't know how we're going to handle the next level of change.
I may be wrong, but doesn't the production of batteries use a lot of water? Something Nevada is known not to have?
. . . just to watch it die.
Also known as 'Little Detroit' or perhaps 'Son of CAR' :)
I think Tesla is accomplishing something amazing and revolutionary. At the same time, the selection of a site for this factory has been WAY over-reported (at least here in NM, which was on the list), and watching the states trip over each other to "give away the store" in luring Tesla is just sad, and especially unfair to regular companies who don't have this kind of pull and will never get such sweetheart deals.
From 11 months ago:
But make no mistake: Tesla still relies on subsidies to stay in the black. Its first-quarter profit, a modest $11 million, hinged on the $68 million it earned selling clean-air credits under a California program that requires automakers to either produce a given number of zero-emission vehicles or satisfy the mandate in some other way. For the second quarter, Tesla announced a $26 million profit (based on one method of accounting), but again the profit hinged on $51 million in ZEV credits; by year's end, these credit sales could net Tesla a whopping $250 million. There are also generous tax credits and rebates for electric-car buyers: $7,500 from the federal government and up to $5,000 if you live in California.
Beyond that, leaving out the HUGE tax credits buyers get for purchasing Telsa cars (10-17% of the price of a Model S) is intellectually dishonest on your part; Tesla would sell far fewer cars and at lower prices with out those extreme tax credits.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You could say the same for traditional fossil fuels, which receive much larger subsidies than electric cars do. In fact, the government could go a long way to helping the environment by simply removing those subsidies, and go even more by putting those subsidies onto solar and wind farms. But even the libertarian approach is better than the status quo.
Nevada, thank you for keeping the high profile, high subsidy demanding factory out of Texas. Our government focuses on bribing low profile companies to bring jobs to Texas, in addition to our low tax rate. Our taxes are too low, we have enough jobs, and a budget deficit. I was afraid our governor would be too interested in grabbing a sexy factory. Whether it was on obstinate legislature, or an even more zealous Nevada subsidies, I am thankful. Maybe our taxes will get raised, and a replacement for 'Robin Hood' can be found.
Sadly, I think the 'solution' will be health care, restaurant, hotel, maid, and day care jobs for people that are not rich enough to own robot factories.
And decide no Teslas can be sold there unless they pay a million dollar tax per vehicle.
You mean that place where they've been building the big factory? That place? The place where work has been ongoing for months?
What a surprise.
Already in a drought. Lithium mining is water intensive.
Waco was Bush's fault. He left that for Clinton to deal with. Reno was the one that resolved the situation even though a few eggs were broken. The media just went apeshit because they hate lesbians so they attacked her nonstop for years. That is normal for the Republican-ruled media here.
Anway, what in the hell does Reno know about car production? Why did Tesla pick her to run their plant?
They figure Nevada has a better likelihood of providing them water than California does, the way things are going.
Did anyone else read that as "Renault"?
We need either a basic income or a negative income tax. I'd prefer the latter in the form of a credit equal to half the difference of federal AGI and poverty level.
Who decided that we're going to mention the energy of new factories?
WTF does it mean to build a 125TJ factory?
That's a meaningful measure for a nuclear powerplant. "Over the lifetime of this plant it will produce XXX TJ of electrical energy."
I understand mentioning the costs of building a factory. Is there an energydollar conversion I'm missing?
Why can't any news-story get their units right?
I'm wondering... When you dump massive amounts of lithium in the grounds in Reno... Will it make the place less insane?
I am so happy that Tesla isn't building the plant in California, and not just because of the pollution problem it poses. I honestly wish that more and more companies would leave my state and especially from Silicon Valley, or is that Silly Con-Man Valley. The blush is off between the marriage of Stanford and UC Berkeley scientists and entrapaneurs in Northern California. Let them go almost anywhere else as far as I care. The reason is that the promise of their efforts has resulted in overcrowding and impact on limited resources that far outweighs the benefits they make to a tiny minority of engineers and business people. Collectively, the big companies in Silicon Valley do not benefit that many people. It is the dumb-ass politicians both local and state who bend over and spread for these guys while ordinary and normal people pay too much to share the space with them. I say send 'em packing, to Nevada, to Texas, or wherever. I'd love to see Facebook and Google and others, go elsewhere. I don't think that promoting growth equates to quality of life and this part of California will do just fine if the high tech companies relocated taking their overpaid engineers and their Superfund Sites elsewhere. Good Riddance, and with them maybe we can get 10 million people to leave California, then again maybe another big quake would send 'em packing, too.