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How Does Musk's Government Funding Compare To Competitors?
Rei writes: We recently discussed an article in the LA Times complaining about how Elon Musk has built his corporate empires — Solar City, Tesla Motors and SpaceX — on the back of government subsidies. However, how does the funding compare in context to various competitors? USC professor Greg Autry breaks it down, noting among other things that SpaceX's competitors have benefited from decades of tremendous government money and a launch monopoly, while the Volt receives — on a percentage basis — 2 1/2 times greater subsidy than a Model S, and was developed on the government's dime.
You can read the whole article (and you should), but here are some nice excerpts.
FTA: On the electric car front, the Chevy Volt is the most significant U.S. competitor to Musk's Tesla Model S...
Meanwhile, Volt was developed during Uncle Sam's bailout of "Government Motors" with $30 billion. That's more than six times the number that got Mr. Hirsch so worked up! Though GM touts that they've "repaid" the government, Treasury reports that the government lost more than $11 billion on that dubious deal.
The Model S is not comparable to the Volt. The Volt is a plug-in hybrid (not an EV) cludge to meet the requirements of a bail out. The Nissan Leaf is a better comparison and it blows the Model S out of the water in its effects on the market. But, the author wants to hamstring a stronger comparison by requiring that the company be American.
Additionally, a bail out deal and subsidy are not comparable. A bail out deal your mom throwing you a few hundred bucks because your business failed, rent needs to be paid, and you have to go visit her to pick up the check. A subsidy is your mom throwing you a few hundred bucks to start up or expand your business. One's there to save your as with some nominal requirements and the other is there to help you profit. Musk has taken both for Tesla.
FTA: The most polite response I can offer to the critics is: Get over it. Find something more productive to do than condemning success. If you insist on continuing to carp, do your research first and hit the right targets. Otherwise you will continue to sound jealous and misinformed.
Wow, internet tough guy, huh?
Oh, and this isn't the only time this guy has white-knighted for Musk. He's actually a bit of a fanboy, so don't let his professorship lull you into a false sense of academic separation:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/... "Disclosure: Dr. Autry currently owns Tesla stock."
https://twitter.com/gregwautry
https://www.facebook.com/gregw...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/re...
You're right. People aren't appreciative *enough* of him.
Let's see. Creates the best car ever, creates rockets for fun and as insurance to potentially save humanity by going to Mars, going to create rockets at least half the price as competitors, and potentially 100x cheaper, wants to save the Earth from CO2 and is beginning to do it, amazing engineer, helped create Paypal (when it was good), open-sourced patents, envisaged design for hyperloop, building the largest battery factory ever made by an order of magnitude or more, wanted to originally research supercaps (great area to study!), cares about quality rather than just money. Put every last penny he had at his own cost in order to save Tesla and SpaceX. Speaks frankly during interviews.
No one like him.
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