Slashdot Mirror
Can Elon Musk Be Weaned Off Government Support? (thehill.com)
mi shares an opinion piece written by Jenny Beth Martin via The Hill: A study published in 2015 by The Los Angeles Times revealed that just three of Musk's ventures -- SolarCity Corp. (which manufactured and installed solar energy systems before its 2016 merger with Tesla Motors Inc.), Tesla Motors Inc. (which manufactures electric vehicles), and Space Exploration Technologies Corp., known as SpaceX (which builds rocket ships) -- had received $4.9 billion in government subsidies to that point in time. By now, Musk's various ventures have sucked well over $5 billion from government coffers. Worse: in order to induce car buyers to spend their money on electric vehicles, the federal government offers a $7,500 rebate on the purchase price. Some states enhance that rebate with rebates of their own. In California, for instance, purchasers of electric vehicles get a state-funded rebate of $2,500 more.
Slashdot reader mi asks: "Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"
Slashdot reader mi asks: "Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"
Editors.
is an idiot. Many companies receive subsidies from the US Government.
JFC Slashdot. Get your shit together.
WEEN!=WEAN
Why do we pay for Amtrak? Why do we pay for corn farms for ethanol? The list is a mile long... I don't have the answers, but I'm sure smarter people than me can chime in.
lol
By all means, let's bitch about companies that are doing useful and interesting things instead of selling a phone with a fancier camera and slightly faster processor.
The government consumes Space-X product (e.g. sending stuff to the Space Station) any money paid for that service isn't a 'government subsidy' (other than government contracts probably overpay anyway). The others I agree with.
Slashdot reader mi asks: "Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"/
Let's not get too pedantic here. There's not a multinational or national company that doesn't have some craveout or handout put into law. Those aren't going away because that's part of how modern governments build agenda and shape policy. Get over it.
As for the rest, I'm okay with this state of affairs. Musk seems to have some good long term goals he's going for. Being able to learn from his mistakes is a good thing for the rest of us trying to figure out how to build and keep an industrial base in the 21st century. That it costs me a few dollars per year in my taxes is a fair price to pay for that knowledge.
Do Oil companies need approx. $4Billion/year of tax payer dollars? When can we wean them off government support?
Tesla does not receive subsidies apart from zero-emission credits. Tesla's _customers_ receive them ($7500 federal tax rebate) until Tesla sells 100000 cars. Other automakers also receive them - I claimed it for my Chevy Volt, for example. And Tesla is going to do just fine without it.
For SpaceX it's even more disingenuous - they counted governmental launch contracts as "subsidies".
"Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?"
What competition?
Pull the plug...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Fundamental misunderstanding (wilful or not) of the US economy. All major companies receive help from the government in many, many forms. Small business gets kicked in the teeth, however.
Can people/businesses get by with out any government handouts in the form of tax breaks (incentives, rebates, credits, etc).
How about "non-profits", or government support of churches by not requiring religions to pay property tax on their holdings?
If I don't go to a mainstream church, and worship in my home, why should the mainstream churches get tax breaks and not me?
The government is always "meddling" by creating tax breaks for "behaviors" that it "desires". I.e. tax free donations, etc.
In 2007-2008, Bush gave a huge government bailout to the Investment Banks -- should we ask if they could have survived w/o the handout?
So Musk's companies are taking advantage of areas where the government offers tax benefits -- why is anyone asking about "Musk" (personally) or his company, when he's exercising the same tax benefits available to MANY other companies, organizations and people.
Why not go after ALL the tax breaks for "everything" and not just single out "Musk" for his businesses benefiting from government policy?
Many companies and businesses would FAIL bigtime without government financing. Think of the military industrial complex -- can they exist w/o government benefits?
He's using his billionaire-bux to leverage public money and spending it on the sort of things public money should (IMHO) be getting spent on.
See here for example.
SpaceX alone will save the government billions in launch costs, so what you've described sounds in reality like the government making a great long-term cost-cutting decision.
As for solar energy and electric car subsidies, that seems again like the government doing exactly what I'd argue it should be doing: helping emergent solutions to pressing problems get off the ground. Or should we just burn coal and drive V8 SUVs forever?
The original article is base on misinformation. The Tea Party affiliation of the author is a dead giveaway. Listen to almost any of Musk's earnings calls to hear the other side of this.
For example, if we look at the burden on consumers from Trump bailouts, it dwarves that of Elon Musk.
At least Musk makes stuff. The Russian comrade just stamps his logo on stuff built by shell companies he lets default on obligations for, and licenses his likeness for a 20-40 percent markup, without actually building anything.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You would think that 100 years of US Government support that the Oil companies could be weaned off of the billions in special tax and other benefits give them every single year. The benefits should go to companies taking us to the 21st century OFF of oil. Such as Tesla and Elon Musk's other ventures. Oops. DL;DR
I drive just about 9000 miles per month, less than the national average of 12000 miles per month. I should pay less road taxes every year, and people doing more than 12000 miles per year should pay more. Why am I subsidizing other people's car usage and when will everyone driving over 12000 miles be able to pay their road maintenance fees on their own? OR I don't have kids. Why should my property taxes go to schools that I or my family will not be using? OR ................insert pet peeve here............
Electric cars are a good thing, and any help we can give to making them mainstream is also a good thing.
Where are all the hit pieces criticizing government subsidies paid to everybody from Fortune 100 oil companies and defense/aerospace contractors to corn farmers in Bumfuck, Iowa?
What makes Musk and his companies so special, exactly?
If there are $7500 + $2500 in rebates for electric vehicles, what are the (hidden and advertised) rebates for normal vehicles?
Can you find people bitching about both global warming and government solar subsidies.
how about we ask what slashdot's intent is in posting this disingenuous question, nothing more than a re-post from a political rag?
or, maybe they could use this to ask some actually interesting questions, like:
1) why is it that the american public must be encouraged to purchase a vehicle that is not harmful to the environment? ans: because this is the government's actual job.
2) what are nasa's current plans on making space travel to mars possible? ans: none, all cancelled
3) what are some truly ridiculous ways in which govt. wastes money by giving it away to lawmakers' constituents because they only happen to sit on a powerful committee? ans: too many to count
4) what is the actual definition of a subsidy and how should they be counted? ans: whatever works for you, on any given day
5) why is the hill picking on the most important innovator of the last one hundred years, one is actually doing something positive for mankind and his future? ans: perhaps an investigative journalist could look into this?
richard
Let's consider a few points here.
Let's start with the idea of the local maxima. This is most easily illustrated if you have a flat lump of clay, with various peaks and troughs in it. The "perfect" location is the highest point on the lump of clay. But if you use a naive algorithm that only looks at a relatively small, local area, you'll find the highest point within that small, local area, climb up it - and now you're stuck there, because everywhere else you might travel to is far enough away that you'd have to drop back into the valleys, and the algorithm won't let you do that.
So you need some way to push the algorithm to look at other regions, far removed from the current one, to see if perhaps the peaks over there are higher than the peaks over here. Sometimes they will be. Sometimes they won't be. But if the local peak happens to be in the middle of a large, flat plain, but waaaay over on the other side of the field you happen to have Mt Everest... well. You may be on a local maxima, but you're a long way removed from the absolute maximum.
So it is with vehicles. Over the past hundred plus years, we've spent a lot of time and effort working on the internal combustion engine. It's been tweaked and tuned and fiddled with, to the point that it's now a lot more efficient, and a lot more effective, than the early models. That's a sunk cost, long since paid off, and it means that a modern combustion engine is relatively cheap to build and use. In comparison, if you look at alternative technologies - such as the electric vehicles Tesla is building - there's still a lot of R&D being done, and that money has to be recouped somehow. Which means that early electric vehicles are going to be comparatively expensive, and comparatively worse performing, when you compare with the current local maxima - the internal combustion engine (be it petrol, diesel, or natural gas driven.)
So if you want to drive a shift from the current local maxima to another, bigger local maxima elsewhere, you need to invest a lot of money, whilst seemingly going backwards. That's a big risk for any company to take, and it could easily have sent Tesla broke. The government chooses to subsidise some risks of this sort, because the potential return to society is massive: consider how much cleaner the air around LA would be, for example, if everybody were driving EVs rather than petroleum-based vehicles. (Yes, if you're burning coal to generate the electricity, you're shifting the pollution to a different, centralised location. That's another problem, and a much easier one to solve than the problem posed by millions of internal combustion engines. Get the first problem solved, and we can then move on to the next one posed by its solution.)
This isn't about giving money to companies for no good reason. This is about saying, "We think there's a better way. It's not going to be economically viable for a company to do it all on its own. So we're giving a time-limited subsidy to a start-up company to try to get it done. If it pays off, we'll reap the rewards, and they'll be (hopefully) higher than the subsidies we're giving these companies." It's a way of leveling the playing field for disruptive technologies while they're getting on their feet - and once the disruptive technologies are on their feet, the subsidies can, and should, go away... along with the market the disruptive technologies are targeting. And society should be significantly better off for it.
Tesla, right now, is on the cusp of being profitable, with the release of the Model 3. Once production of that vehicle ramps up, we should see Tesla being able to stand on its own feet, without outside support. But it needed that support to get to that point. I'm not a US taxpayer, but if I were, I would have absolutely no problem with this arrangement; it's all about the long-term payoff.
It's a similar story for Solar City and SpaceX - SpaceX has already done some brilliant work to show that, yes, rockets can be designed to be re-used, and that means that the cost of launching stuff into space has already been driven down significantly. Consider: a Saturn V launch cost $185 million in 1970 dollars, of which $110 million was the actual rocket...
ULA, a competitor to SX, gets 1B / year subsidy. Boeing recently got 4B to develop a human rated space craft and fly it 3x. SX got less than 3B for doing it AND flying it 6x. SX continues to under bid all other rocket launchers for NASA, and the DOD while having 2/3 to 3/4 of their flights be commercial work, not gov.
.5B loan that they paid off early. In addition, customers get 7500 / EV that Tesla sells. .25/gal MINIMUM.
So very little subsidy for SX, and massive ones for its competitors.
Tesla got a
GM, Ford, and Chrysler were bailed out by the gov partially with payoffs and partially with loans that STILL ARE NOT PAID OFF. All of the cars sold in America get 7500 for being hybrid or EV. In addition, back in 2008, America bought a large number of used cars to subsidize car sales for Ford, GM, and Chrysler. So, very little to no subsidy on Tesla's part, but HUGE ones for its competitors.
Oil companies and coal are MASSIVELY subsidized. Worse yet, ICE vehicles are not paying anywhere close to what it takes to maintain the roads. We need to increase taxes on diesel and gas by another
Then we have solar city. CONgress continues to push subsidies for Solar. Yet, SC has the LOWEST costs in America and are about to go even lower later this year.
To read idiots that claim that Musk is living on subsidies is just a FUD POS from kock bros and other idiot far right wingies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Oh well, lets see... Because his ideas still have yet to be proven profitable? Oh sure, he is famous and gets mega-California-bucks. What the actual fuck?! He offers NOTHING that any other intelligent person out of 10,000 fellow autistic morons in America could offer. He is just the lucky dumbass in the spotlight. Good for you, dumbass!
SpaceX's only current competitor for the large "national security payload" market is United Launch Alliance, which receives an annual payment on the order of $1B for "launch capability", supposedly to keep infrastructure maintained and keep production lines at full capacity even if no orders are placed, to allow for fast turnaround of time-sensitive payloads. Despite taking that money, ULA has declined to enter bids on several open-bid contracts that SpaceX bid on, preferring instead to bid on the many closed-bid contracts. SpaceX is consistently bidding lower than ULA, despite not receiving an annual subsidy and thus having to factor that cost into every launch.
Restricting military/intelligence satellite launches to only American companies makes sense, I have no argument there as long as American companies aren't prevented from competing fairly. Paying fixed costs annually and then per-launch costs on a per-launch basis makes sense, but ought to be done consistently to allow fair competition. Either get rid of both of their handouts, or distribute them evenly.
(Oh, and those Commercial Cargo/Crew Development contracts from NASA? Boeing, parent company to ULA, is part of those too, and is bafflingly getting paid more for the same goals and deadlines.)
As for Tesla... did GM pay back its bailout loans yet? Tesla did. I find it hard to worry about $1,000 per car when $100,000,000,000 (rounding each to the nearest power of ten) was practically given to other companies to reward them for helping crash the economy.
"Why are you and I subsidizing Big Corn's products and when will their businesses be able to compete on their own?"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Enjoy getting raped on your short
I suspect due to the tenor of recent articles that BizX is using Slashdot to forward an agenda for its own profit.
Anyone who qualifies for the subsidy can get it. It's just that there are very few companies in that space, which is why there's subsidies there in the first place, to help lower the barrier to entry.
I didn't skim the article, but did they mention that Telsa repaid a half-billion dollar loan from the Government 9 years early, in 2013?
http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/2...
I guess if the article does mention it, it'll grump about the fact that the government didn't get all the interest it was entitled to over the course of the loan......
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
SpaceX sells launch services to the USG at lowrsaves money for the USG. These are not "subsidies", they are competitive and bid upon launch contracts. Sometimes there is only one company that can meet them, usually ULA in that case, but usually they are open to anyone who can meet the requirements. This is no more a "subsidy" than I am giving my local grocer a subsidy when I buy his apples.
Electric car tax breaks are open to any kind of qualifying vehicle, not just Tesla, and they are paid to the purchaser of he vehicle, not Tesla. better to ask why nobody else has a competitive vehicle with the Model 3.
Hitpiece much?
Okay, so let's break this down.
On the other hand, from the text of the summary:
So, in the 2 year gap between the 2015 article and now, Musk had received a further $10 Million ($0.1 Billion) in subsidies. That's really not all that much.
The government rebates for buyers of EVs (which goes to the buyers, not Tesla) goes to all buyers of any EVs. Chevy Bolt, Mitsubishi iMIEV, BMW i3, you name it. It's also a fraction of the rebates received for buying larger vehicles.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/06/upshot/do-oil-companies-really-need-4-billion-per-year-of-taxpayers-money.html
I've said it before. Elon Musk is one of those people who actually get shit done to the benefit of the entire humanity. If he needs another 5 billion, give it to him, it's in good hands. Look at Space X and what they are doing. Look at the solar roof thing. And look at a Tesla and sit down in one. This guy and his crew are single-handedly decomissioning the IC engine! What a feat.
He deserves all the billions he can lay his hands on, earned or subsidized makes no difference.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Worse: in order to induce car buyers to spend their money on electric vehicles, the federal government offers a $7,500 rebate on the purchase price.
Is that bad? Because not too long ago our national security was at risk since OPEC had us by the balls over a resource that we depended upon but could not produce ourselves. And as gas prices rose and applies economic pressure on everyone it bust bubbles causing a massive financial econopocalypse. The sort that hadn't been seen since the great depression.
We launched TRIllion dollar WARS over this shit.
Last I checked, there was a temporary spike in US oil production as we squeeze the last few drops out of old wells via fracking, and unlocked some oil from shale. Yay technological improvement. But that doesn't change the fact that cars are running on fossil fuels and ultimately this is not sustainable.
So what do we do? We encourage investment into alternatives. Like electric cars. Which can be powered off of grid power which can, in turn, be powered by renewable sources. So we subsidize electric cars. Would you rather we ban ice cars? Add an ice-tax? Tax fuel prices? Because raising fuel prices worked out so well for us last time.
All that said. If a company specifically targets hoovering up government subsidies, that's generally a bad thing. And there WILL come a time when such encouraging subsidies go away. But you have to examine each program on it's merits or flaws rather than on the whole. Everyone likes to bitch about taxes until you start suggesting programs to cut to reduce them.
Microsoft took $95 million in STATE subsidies in 2014...
If you are a proponent of the scary catastrophic anthropogenic global warming predictions, then you can thank yourself for giving Musk the tools to scam the system
As a consumer you get a rebate for buying an electric car. Why? Because the government wants to encourage consumers to buy electric cars. It reduces the effective price of the Tesla. The Times says this "subsidizes" Tesla. Tesla may be able to sell more cars to people who otherwise will claim they cannot afford them, but that money is not free money to Tesla, which never sees it. The government also will give me (not Tesla, but ME) a 30% credit if I buy solar panels from Solar City. The Times counts that as a subsidy to Tesla. When Tesla really did get money from the government, that loan was repaid with interest, Romney to the contrary. The citizens made several million dollars on that deal, unlike Solandra, which failed. Is SpaceX subsidized? Excuse me, but when they launch a satellite or a capsule for NASA they expect to be paid, and their price is about half what ULA charges. Who is subsidized? SpaceX or ULA?
The thing to understand about taxes is that they are confiscatory. The government sets a rate, and once in awhile they drop the rate to encourage growth. People immediately claim that's a "subsidy." Nonsense. They are just confiscating less. It's not THEIR money in the first place. It's OURS. They are like bank robbers giving a rebate to the bank for how much money they stole. And what the government does with this money is pay themselves a great deal, and give it away to people who don't produce anything.
You have to ask yourself, do you want the jobs provided by a huge battery factory or not? Do you want well-paid employees in your state or not? Do you want to move us away from fossil fuels or not? Yes or no? Answer the questions. It's hypocritical to bitch and moan about climate change, then do everything in your power to prevent someone from doing something about it. So I'm fine with Musk's so-called "subsidies." I certainly don't see anyone else doing anything useful.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
What is this political advert doing on slashdot?
Without checking (cuz some /. weenie will call me out on it) the hard $, and emotional costs of war casualties make any other corporate subsidy pale in comparison, all in the name of oil.
"Jenny Beth Martin is the co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots". So, I'm assuming she doesn't want any government subsidies for anything at all, and wants to reduce our government down to just doing "mutual defense" of the individual states. She also makes around 15K per month for "strategic consulting" and $272,000 salary as President of said Tea Party Patriots...for a total of over $450,000 a year. That's quite a bit of "tea".
My California city has more than 3,000 homeless people. They aren't getting rebates of $7,500 and $2,500. They aren't buying cars that cost $100,000. In fact every dollar that the government (taxpayer) gives to those rich people is a dollar that isn't helping people who could actually use it.
...omphaloskepsis often...
how about we ask what slashdot's intent is in posting this disingenuous question in the first place? or, maybe they could use this to ask some actually interesting questions, like: 1) why is it that the american public must be encouraged to purchase a vehicle that is not harmful to the environment? ans: because this is the government's actual job. 2) what are nasa's current plans on making space travel to mars possible? ans: none, all cancelled 3) what are some truly ridiculous ways in which govt. wastes money by giving it away to lawmakers' constituents because they only happen to sit on a powerful committee? ans: too many to count 4) what is the actual definition of a subsidy and how should they be counted? ans: whatever works for you, on any given day 5) why is the hill (and, in turn, user mi) picking on the most important innovator of the last one hundred years, one who is actually doing something positive for mankind and his future? ans: perhaps an investigative journalist could look into this?
The author of this article is the co-founder and national coordinator of the Tea Party Patriots. Where do they get there money from? Their website isn't even registered in the US.
Government support is his entire business model.
So what?
The 5 richest people in the US (the Waltons, owners of Walmart), get 17% of every food stamp dollar
Government aid to Farmers will be $23+ billion in 2017
When Dick Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton, convinced "W" to start a war in Iraq, Halliburton was awarded $8B in no bid contracts
The oligarchy in the country have always enriched themselves with "the peoples money" - how do you think they got there?
Fake News at its best. The linked OPINION PIECE over at The Hill starts with a false premise -- that companies run by Elon Musk have gotten approximately $5 billion in taxpayer funds -- and runs blindly with it.
Click thru to the original LA Times from May 2015 and you get this bit of clarity:
The figure compiled by The Times comprises a variety of government incentives, including grants, tax breaks, factory construction, discounted loans and environmental credits that Tesla can sell. It also includes tax credits and rebates to buyers of solar panels and electric cars.
Let's take that apart one piece at a time, starting with the easy ones: discounted loans, factory construction, and end-user rebates.
Tesla's discounted loans were loans that were made by the Dept. of Energy only if Tesla could get matching funding from the private sector. They did. And then paid the loans back, plus interest, a full nine years before they were due.
Yes, they paid them back with interest. That isn't "taking taxpayer money". They got it all back plus some. You know, like capitalism.
How about "end user rebates"? Musk doesn't get those, they go to the person -- taxpayer -- purchasing the electric vehicle. You get them on Nissan Leafs and Chevy Volts as well. And they're only around until the manufacturer sells a certain number of vehicles. Claiming them as a "subsidy" for Musk is dishonest.
Factory construction and tax breaks? State-level incentives made by California, New York, and Nevada because factories bring jobs and other revenue. This isn't unique to Musk or any of his companies. States, Counties, and Cities use tax incentives -- rebates, discounts, and waivers -- in order to lure all sorts of businesses, from Walmart to automotive manufacturers. Trying to call out Musk for this as if it is something special given to his companies, again, dishonest.
Environmental tax credits and grants in general are because the pollution created by the fossil fuel industry is horrendous, and isn't something that individuals can deal with on their own. Large companies get their own subsidies by externalizing the environmental costs -- that is, sweeping the filth under the run and not paying to clean up.
Corporations will shit all over everything if it can make them a buck. Individual who need jobs to survive aren't in a position to fight for even the basics -- that is one of the reasons we have governments.
The environmental benefits of switching to electric vehicles and solar/wind power are massive, and greatly outweigh the downsides (when measured against the coal/oil yardstick).
Yes, the government needs to actively encourage clean technologies. Yes, it is in the tax payers best interest to support these sorts of things. There are always people who will value short term profits over long term benefits, so no, the unregulated free market will not handle this better.
Been there (Love Canal, NY & New Jersey in the 1970s), done that (tetra-ethyl lead, freon, asbestos), not going back for some Ayn Rand-worshiping fanatic who failed to study history or learn anything useful from it.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
"And how many of those institutions have the money flow into one person's pocket?"
The only real money Musk makes is from stock & he only gets additional shares when he meets certain goals.
He's put over $70 million of his own money into Tesla in the early years; I'm sure he could have done very nicely in much safer investments
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Those subsidies were created to encourage a Tesla-like company to come into existence in the first place and move the entire industry into a new electric age. Mission accomplished and I'm all for it. Don't blame Tesla for for being the successful results of some good policy.
if the right wing neo-nazi fascist wannabe's didn't post some conservative propaganda or lies. I guess last last weeks posting of a verified lie and conspiracy theory by Nunes didn't prompt "mi" to give a long hard look to his complete lack of morality or ethics.
Why is it conservatives lie so fucking much?
Fascism: An authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government and social organization. See also: NAZI's
I am starting to see articles like this which try to undermine renewable energy companies and government subsidies. Looks like the oil lobby is behind this?
Like America just happen, You are a buffoon.
This article was brought to you by BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxonmobil, and Shell.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products and when will his businesses be able to compete on their own?
I do not subsidize this. One reason why you do subsidize is to make sure US tech has an edge over other countries (including mine) startups.
Tea Party Patriots is funded by Freedom Works which is a Koch brothers front group. They are busy making idiotic videos bashing electric cars these days too. As Ghandi said, First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you. The next stage is for Musk and all of us and the planet to win.
Answer the same question regarding the major oil companies while you're at it.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2017/aug/07/fossil-fuel-subsidies-are-a-staggering-5-tn-per-year
According to new information compiled, 6.5% of the global GDP goes into fossil fuel subsidies. You want to stop subsidies? I agree. Let's stop ALL of them. Electric cars will be a no brainer when gas is $8 a gallon.
The GE nuclear plants under construction that are being halted due to severe cost overruns in South Carolina and Georgia will saddle the taxpayers with close to $10B in loan guarantees from the government. Crickets from the Conservatives on this, but...Gasp!...Solar or other Green (read: "Liberal") stuff? Noooooo!!!!
"Gas" is currently at an average of $5.50 in the UK, and has been as high as $8 recently - and it hasn't forced a significant number of people onto electric cars.
The issue for a large proportion of the world isn't the price of petrol, its the difficulty with which charging an electric vehicle presents. In my "home" city of Norwich, most people live in terraced housing, have no off street parking, and indeed have no *designated* parking. Getting parked on the same street as your house is often a difficulty in itself.
And Norwich is pretty representative of most of Europe, where we don't have a grid system and most people don't have driveways or wide roads etc etc.
No one seems to ever suggest a reasonable solution to this issue.
...and never a peep from conservatives.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
By all means yank the "subsidies" from Tesla/SpaceX/Solar City........ as long as the subsidies for coal, oil, agriculture, railroads utilities, automotive manufacturers, defense industry, law enforcement, etc are packaged in the same bill. The auto "loan" alone ran $80 Billion, $10-20 Billion of which was lost (failure to pay back, interest losses, etc), railroad subsidies are well over a billion a year and they literally spend billions per year in the defense industry to build tanks to park them out in the desert to rust. Musks companies barely show as a rounding error in the balance sheets of the behemoths suckling at the government teat.
Europe is a different market. Most people would probably consider a 30 mile commute one way to be utter insanity but that isn't too unusual in North America. Some people commute 60 miles or more. And with gas around $3 in the US, it jumping to $8 combined with those lengthy commutes would absolutely be the first horseman of the Apocalypse showing up.
That said I live in Canada where we have been enjoying $1.20-$1.40 a liter gas for ages. That's one of the reasons I take transit to work.
"Why are you and I subsidizing Elon Musk's products"
Freaking excellent question.
I suspect its the Tesla cars phone home/self-driving thing. The government LOVE the idea of more ways to spy on and removing any/all control from the people.
"No one seems to ever suggest a reasonable solution to this issue."
Add charging points to streetlamps.
You're welcome.
$70 million for Musk is pocket change. Even if Tesla was a total failure, it wouldn't have changed his life. Much like if I invested $70 in something, no sacrifice involved.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
I don't know about the rest of Europe, but the whole "short commutes only" thing is a bit of a myth here in the UK - I know plenty of people who commute 50 miles a day by car, each way.
The street lamps that are 100ft apart and get turned off at night? The street lamps that are set back from the road so any charging cable would have to cross the pavement as well? The street lamps that are outnumbered on my street my about 20:1?
Getting access to a mains supply to hook a charging point up isn't the issue if you are the council or the electricity company, the lines are right there. The issue is that for a street like mine, you would need a charging point every 7ft on each side of the road, and those charging points would need to handle multiple users accounts.
There are a lot of people who short-sold Tesla and are going to lose big money if they can't drive the stock down. So, you're going to see a lot of propoganda. I would not be surprised if they were prompting the attempts at unionization and creating whatever other bad news they could.
Bruce Perens.
I had heard the RUMOR that Mr. "Elon" was a good scientist, but now I hear that he is just using his welfare money to buy pizza pockets?? Please, if Mr. Musk (I guess the musk in his bedroom??) is not going to use the money for good, then please stop trying to say he is presidential material. SpaceX is another marijuana fantasy and I will not have it!!
Why aren't more US Co's making deals like FoxConn in WI ? Presumably other businesses could create jobs with such high support. Of course FoxConn has a brand and makes tech products vs cheese but it ain't easy being cheesy. FoxConn will do better coz they'll get the cheddar.
$70 million for Musk is pocket change. Even if Tesla was a total failure, it wouldn't have changed his life. Much like if I invested $70 in something, no sacrifice involved.
It wasn't pocket change at the time - probably 40% of his net worth. The company came vey close to bankruptcy, reportedly were down to only enough cash for another couple weeks operation when Musk brokered a deal with Daimler & Toyota.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
You old twisted geezer! Get away from oil, it stinks and causes cancer. Get away from coal, it kills the miners. This article/post was so FOX like type of twisted fake news.
ps. My grandfather was a miner and he's died! Did the Koch's give him any money? NO! they kept every $Millions/$Billions that they where making.
OK, I was under the impression that he was worth more at the time. Still having your net worth reduced from $150 million to $80 million, still doesn't affect your quality of life too much.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he made the investment. Too many are sitting on fortunes now instead of investing it in something constructive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Replace street lights with more energy-efficient LEDs, and use the now superfluous current carrying capacity of their cables to supply EV charging outlets in the lightposts.
This is already being done, and will spread with demand.
I was an economics student. We are taught that one of the essential points of government is to address market failure. Everything has a cost. If I drive a car very loudly past your house every hour, and you try to sell it, your house is going to fetch you less money. Naturally, there is no way I directly pay you for the noise I'm creating. The payment of a fine to the government for noise pollution might reduce the noise I make and increase the value of your house. Alternatively, it might reimburse you for the inconvenience of living close to me. Some of the cost is obvious and borne by the producer. Others are to third parties who deserve to be compensated. Elon Musk is advancing technology, reducing global warming, reducing the need for infrastructure investment in the grid, reducing house prices (directly by providing cheaper roofing materials and by increasing land available to include that on mars potentially). All of these are valid uses of subsidy. The jobs created are also important so the welfare payments are reduced for the unemployment that would otherwise occur. Other motor companies benefit from a subsidy to gas prices, so electric vehicles need equivalent subsidies to level the playing field. These are some of the reasons you and I should subsidise Elon Musk's companies. I'm from the UK and I will also subsidise his company despite not benefiting as much from taxation of his company. I do still benefit from the positive externalities compared to the next best alternative (petrol/gas)
America has the largest system of corporate welfare ever seen - bigger than that of all other countries combined. It is just the ordinary citizen who can't get basic human right met, like the right to decent healthcare, or decent care for the elderly. I'm just glad I don't live there.
Government spending - in the defence sector, in the space sector and many others - has supported technological innovation for decades. Without these investments, most of the modern world - the internet, the transistor, most computing and most comms - would not exist. There's no business case for their invention lat alone development and commercialisation. Read a history book. $5 billion for Tesla over 10 years is nothing compared to the military-industrial complex since 1940.
US Federal government funds were also used to rescue GM (and, to a smaller extent, Chrysler) during the GFC. Do you think that's a good way to spend public money?
Did they consider things like the 2 trillion and 4000 lives spent on the gulf war to protect oil in their totals?
When we don't have to protect oil wells, spending and wars will drop markedly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
This article and linky to slashdot is the work of a shill account paid for via a company that fossil fuel corps have hired to try and steer public opinion on Musk's companies to be negative.
delete it and or the accounts associated with this stuff.
I know, as an AC my comment is somewhat insignificant but I need to write this down.
This is the dumbest article on Slashdot. How on earth is that a relevant article? It's the purest form of disinformation crafted in the way all the mass media "news" do these days. For those tempted to believe there's something to that story, read the comments.
Remove this article!!
OK, I was under the impression that he was worth more at the time. Still having your net worth reduced from $150 million to $80 million, still doesn't affect your quality of life too much.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that he made the investment. Too many are sitting on fortunes now instead of investing it in something constructive.
He didn't put more into Tesla because he was the lone financial backer for SpaceX, supposedly to the tune of $100 million, up until the company started winning contracts.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Err quite a lot of people in the UK do 30+ mile commutes. The average mileage in the UK is 12,000 miles per annum. Until recently I used to do 17-20,000 miles, 15,000 of that being commuting.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Did you not read my reply to the other poster who suggested a similar thing?
The issue is that for a street like mine, you would need a charging point every 7ft on each side of the road, and those charging points would need to handle multiple users accounts.
It's been done. Way back before modern car batteries, there were cold places that had electrical outlets attached to the parking meters so you could plug in your block heater while you were parked. Modern parking meters have no trouble reading credit cards and charging your account. Integrate the two and you're done. It wouldn't be cheap to do all at once, but it's certainly doable by cities as a long term program.
No.
Musk is a financier -- someone who engages in financial dealing. He has never managed a profitable business. Always great to the corporate media to overlook it all the time. Then again, it conflicts with their Musk scenario as they work their way towards complete irrelevance.
No one seems to ever suggest a reasonable solution to this issue.
Well, the solution would be "5 minute" fast charging since that is pretty much the only thing that would work for a system that is built around special refueling-stations.
But it also depends a bit of what you mean with "no off street parking".
If there already is room made on the street for parking or if there always is cars there then you might just as well add charging outlets.
If the street has lampposts the wiring is already there and since it is for overnight charging you don't need to have any supercharging capabilities to begin with. That is a luxury that can be added later.
It is also not like everyone switches to EV at the same time so any upgrades to the grid will be possible to do gradually.
We'd like to draw a neat line and say "Tesla is being propped up by government subsidies whereas [company x] is surviving on its wits & talents in the marketplace." But is that true? Do you really want to open the can o' worms that is government subsidies of various industries or players, whether through direct taxpayer support, tax incentives/loopholes (just direct taxpayer support by other means), infrastructure investment, R&D investment, preferential immigration policies, etc. etc. The list is long. So...as they say...people who live in glass office parks...
What about the bailout money the other car companies took? What about the subsidies for fossil fuel companies? How much money has the United Launch Alliance taken? At least some of the money SpaceX has received was from providing resupply flights to ISS and for NRO satellite launches. Solar City has also installed solar power stations for US military bases. So at least some of the money has been from selling products and services. It is not out of the ordinary for governments to provide subsidies to industries that are just starting. Especially, in the case of industries that will provide continues economic development over time and those that address significant risks to the current economy (i.e. climate change).
Sour grapes anybody?
"The street lamps that are 100ft apart and get turned off at night?"
Add a timer circuit to the bulb that'll turn it off, while keeping the power supply live for recharging.
"The street lamps that are set back from the road so any charging cable would have to cross the pavement as well?"
Run an underground cable across the pavement to the kerb, then up into a breakout post a few feet high.
"The street lamps that are outnumbered on my street my about 20:1?"
Paint an 'electric cars only' parking bay next to them. Ticket regular cars that park there. Until electric cars outnumber regular cars by more than that ratio, we're fine.
"those charging points would need to handle multiple users accounts."
Give subscribers an RFID tag they wave at the charging point to engage power delivery. Charge a cheap flat rate per month/year to subsidise and incentivise initial adoption. Add more breakout posts as electric cars become more common, and move to a more granular billing system. Plenty of ideas.
Seams to me Musk is currently the target of a smearing campaign ... I wonder who's behind it ... Big Oil (read Kock Brothers)? Time will tell.
PS: Socialism should'nt be reserved for military only ...
Actually the average mileage in the UK is 12,000 *k* per annum, closer to 8000 miles. You are more of an outlier. The average in the US, which has more cars per capita (800 vs 520 per 1000 people), is 13,500 miles. So you've got 50% more cars per capita, and each of those cars is driving 70% more miles on average.
I used to live in the UK, and it's hard for most people there to really get their heads around the amount Americans drive.
It's the wrong question. It's not "why does SpaceX need subsidies?", it's "why does the space sector need subsidies?" and even more broadly, "why do so many industries need subsidies?"
It's always an easy argument: the fossil fuel companies bitch that renewable energy is subsidised - but so are they. Nuclear is subsidised, fossil fuels are subsidised. Agriculture gets subsidised. So many subsidies in a supposedly free market country. And of course the US isn't the only country doing this: the EU subsidises left, right and centre, the Chinese do.
What would happen if all these subsidies simply disappeared? Well the businesses would still incur costs so they would just pass them on to the consumer instead. In theory, the consumer's tax bill would decrease because the government no longer needs to pay the subsidies. (In practice I suspect they would just find something else to spend the money on.) Or the incentives for working in particular ways would disappear, so business practices and focus on particular areas that are encouraged by subsidies would change.
I'm not going to take a view on whether subsidies are bad or good, to be honest it's not really something I care about a great deal, but they are used by government as a tool for encouraging certain behaviours or investment in certain areas. If there are areas that are "great problems" such as space, or seen as economic multipliers, such as AI / autonomous cars, then they're likely to attract subsidies. An entrepreneur interested in tackling "great problem" issues such as Musk is therefore likely to be working in a field where subsidies would be available.
I used to commute 41 miles each way for a couple of years - and about 10 miles of that was over single track mountain passes, too. And that was when fuel was about £1.22 a litre. Before that I used to have a weekly commute of 330 miles each way. Would have loved an electric car, but back then the range wasn't good enough (and I couldn't afford a Tesla). However I love even more my new job with a 2 mile commute which in good weather I can walk or cycle :)
Because the Elon Musk fanboys are going to leave the floor rather sticky with all that circle-jerking...
I live in the US and I have a hard time getting my head around the amount Americans drive. I have co-workers who commute 1.5 hrs each way. 80 miles/130km EACH WAY, EVERY DAY!!! How do you even live your life when 3 hours of every day is spent driving to/from work? I have a 30 minute commute and feel like even that sucks a little too much out of my day. Two more lost hours, and I would accomplish nothing useful outside of work!
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Yeah, because "The Hill" is such a truth-telling organization with no agenda whatsoever.
One rag's "Government Subsidy" is another one's "Payment for Services".
How much has the US Government "subsidised" Wal*Mart over the last 40 years? I would expect that number to be into the 1000's of Billions when you take into account tax breaks, "special treatment" and funding their workers via Government Welfare.
And lets not even get into the State and Municiple-level tax and other sweet-heart deals with Wal*Mart.
Corporate Wefare is a major problem in the US (and elsewhere) and people who live in Glass houses...........
Perfect, and we could easily make up that difference to $8 per gallon with the savings in taxes we did't pay in to the federal government since they are non longer paying out all those subsidies right?
Look, let's not buy into the shell game please. The middle class pays the bill no matter how you want to spin it.
I almost wish one US state would become fully "government free", as a voluntary experiment, so we can see how everyone makes it!
We could probably watch the 99% just die, get abused, then survive through their overlord without democracy and maybe, eventually, have a revolution and rediscover democracy...
you clearly have no idea what a junk bond actually is. look it up. 'junk' is not a pejorative term, in this context.
What a salesman Musk is. And how stupid is our government for giving him money to develop projects that won't pay for themselves? I can't blame him for conning the government, but who authorized these payments? Those people should be prosecuted.
they took a $6b loan that they still haven't paid out. it wasn't TARP, but it was a bailout. a rose by any other name...
You don't seem to understand the setup here in the UK, which is what we are talking about.
"Block heaters" haven't ever been a thing here.
Parking meters are one per block of parking, you go find the nearest one (could be on the other side of the street) and buy a physical ticket which you stick to the inside of the windscreen.
Most residential parking however is on street, and controlled by permits you display. There are no allocated spaces, you park by the side of the road where you can (and where there are no restrictions) - parking spaces are rarely marked, so you literally fit the car in as best as you can.
This means that on our street, for 100 houses (each terraced house is about 1.5 car lengths wide, not counting any space between the cars), you often can't park outside your house, as it's a free for all. Many houses have two cars, which means you often can't even park on your street.
Parking in this example is parking in the direction of traffic - you get a row of parked cars down each side of the road, and a single row of traffic between them. It's that tight.
Once you start understanding how different it is here, you start understanding the issues present. Electric charging in these circumstances means a *lot* has to change, but no one can suggest reasonable changes which work.
For my city alone, you are probably talking about the installation of 100,000 on street chargers, which is a *massive* undertaking - who is going to do that? The current wave of electric is based on home charging and a few points in well located spots, and that simply doesn't work here.
I wonder if, for the tight on-street parking situations described, there are any pedestrian sidewalks? If so, I would suggest a city undertake to install raised sidewalks with parking spaces and metered universal charging stations underneath, with the revenue from the charging station being used to add more parking spaces.
Just a quick thought. I'm sure that other solutions could be arrived at.
Some people are so locked into lockstep "it can't be done" thinking patterns, it's depressing!
It's a wonder how the human race managed to make it this far with such defeatist attitudes!
PlaynBass