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Tesla Proves To Be Too Pricey For Germany, Loses Tax Subsidies (reuters.com)
Tesla has been removed from Germany's list of electric cars eligible for subsidies because its Model S sedan is too expensive for the scheme. Tesla customers cannot order the Model S base version without extra features that pushed the car above the 60,000 euro ($71,500) price limit, a spokesman for the German Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Controls (BAFA) said on Friday. From the report: Germany last year launched the incentive scheme worth about 1 billion euros, partly financed by the German car industry, to boost electric car usage. A price cap was included to exempt premium models. "This is a completely false accusation. Anyone in Germany can order a Tesla Model S base version without the comfort package, and we have delivered such cars to customers," Tesla said in a statement. The carmaker said the upper price limit was initially set by the German government to exclude Tesla, but later a compromise was reached "that allows Tesla to sell a low option vehicle that qualifies for the incentive and customers can subsequently upgrade if they wish." It said, however, it would investigate whether any car buyers were denied the no-frills version. Under the subsidy scheme, buyers get 4,000 euros off their all-electric vehicle purchase and 3,000 euros off plug-in hybrids.
Gutten Tag!
Why not just change that?
"This is a completely false accusation. Anyone in Germany can order a Tesla Model S base version without the comfort package, and we have delivered such cars to customers," Tesla said in a statement.
From the summary. Try reading next time.
It will still be too expensive but closer to a price middle class people will find palatable.
"The carmaker said the upper price limit was initially set by the German government to exclude Tesla, but later a compromise was reached "that allows Tesla to sell a low option vehicle that qualifies for the incentive and customers can subsequently upgrade if they wish." It said"
Seems pretty silly if a substantial part of the reason for the price cap was to prevent Tesla cars specifically being included, but then they did an end-run around that by letting you buy the base model + the upgrade. I bet you can buy the "base model" and receive the "upgrade" before you even drive it away, and still get the credits.
Several companies make more electric cars than Tesla does. Nissan is one you've heard of, probably. The Nissan Leaf is the most popular. They also make some all-electric vehicles for business use.
Several companies in China make electric cars. In fact China makes more electric cars than the rest of the world combined. BYD is one Chinese company.
> I have only ever heard of Telsa manufacturing them.
Nissan and BYD executives don't announce they're building a tunnel, without permits, for a scientifically questionable vacuum subway from their parking lot to some other city. They just make good cars. Elon Musk is the PT Barnum of our age.
No Ray, Elon Musk is trying something that hasn't been done whereas you're just a jealous faggot with a coal-fired intellect firing off PT Barnum aphorisms. FTFY.
General Motors builds an amazing electric as well.
Several companies make more electric cars than Tesla does. Nissan is one you've heard of, probably. The Nissan Leaf is the most popular. They also make some all-electric vehicles for business use.
The keyword was viable. The Nissan Leaf does not count. Unless you are a septuagenarian granny. Try again.
Several companies in China make electric cars. In fact China makes more electric cars than the rest of the world combined. BYD is one Chinese company.
Even less viable. Have you seen the Chinese crap? I'd feel safer in a flying death trap, aka a Chevy Corvair.
Nissan and BYD executives don't announce they're building a tunnel, without permits, for a scientifically questionable vacuum subway from their parking lot to some other city. They just make good cars. Elon Musk is the PT Barnum of our age.
Elon Musk never perpetuated a multi-billion dollar fraud on the public. I'll take his actions over the documented crimes of the automotive and financial industry. And the defense/aerospace industry for that matter.
Sucks when you run out of other people's money...happens sooner or later.
Ferret
Sic gorgiamus allos subjectatos nunc
GM Volt/Bolt, Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi MiEV or whatever it's called - all more affordable electric vehicles. In general I support not subsidising conspicuous consumption.
Note I am in no way against the wealthy. I wish them every success.
But they don't need government assistance to buy a luxury vehicle.
You contradicted yourself:
They're nothing but a rich person's "fashion statement". / "If the U.S. took away Tesla's subsidy, they'd go bankrupt very quickly."
They buy it because its an amazing piece of tech and they're prepared to spend the money on it. As long as Telsa stays ahead of the game that will continue. iPhoneX springs to mind.
Hi, I'm #9 on that list, why would you consider me mentally deficient in some way for asking a simple question that came to mind? I rather figure this same question probably came to a few peoples minds.
By the way for those who answered me above, thank you very much, it was very informative learning about other electric vehicles though the gist seemed to be that most of them were not actually fully electric but rather hybrid. Also for those who talked about under-powered electrics as 'granny' cars, I think that an under powered car is still a fine thing, my requirements are for mobility to buy groceries and go to work, I don't have an obsession with spinning the tires for a smoke show. I actually do drive like a granny going the speed limit +3km with the cruise control set for the most part and just turn the wheel left/right carefully staying within the lines.
The people who have spoken about these vehicles being luxury accessories are missing some of the points about electrics which have garnered the attentions of the nation. The vehicles do not wear out after 10 years like a standard chemical engine due to the lack of moving parts, you can still drive an electric significantly further into the future than a gas or diesel powered vehicle because there are less hoses/belts/friction bearing components to wear out. Also the brakes (which I just paid 450$ to replace on my rear tires) do not wear out as quickly due to regenerative braking. I believe there are significant savings to be had over the long run with these vehicles and the technology is amazing. I could also see some people like writers or other work from home types (I am a work from home web developer) who could charge these batteries significantly from solar panels for the 1 or 2 days per week the vehicle is actually utilized.
Sometimes high levels of speed,power,charging, even aesthetics etc are not as attractive as one would imagine, most of the car commercials which feature extreme horse power and a shiny body just make me roll my eyes while thinking "they really just DO NOT get what I need". Cheap fuel and cheap longevity are significantly more important.
Just remove the extras and make them aftermarket add ons. Tesla could probably put a kit together.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Because the Germans are using a Volkswagen calculator.
It's doubtful that the law would be valid if it outright said "except Tesla" in its language. So they tried to infer it by putting a price cap just under what a Tesla S costs. Then Tesla started offering a trim package that meets the law's price criteria.
What exactly is the problem again? Oh, what it said in the summary: this program is partially paid for by the German auto makers, and the German auto industry doesn't want to have that money going to Tesla. So let's fuck around with sock puppets in the government rather than build a competitive offering. Because clearly someone that was going to buy a Tesla is going to change their mind over this subsidy and get an electric VW Golf instead?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Don't forget the BMW i3 - or the i8.
The result of german newspaper investigation was:
Tesla does not produce the base version - although it was offered.
Some buyers got the premium version for the price of the base version.
In a testbuy scenario, Tesla sell staff told its not possible to buy base version, base version does not exist - IT is just to Trick german law. So the customer had to buy the premium version.
Sounds like trouble for tesla.
German newspaper:
http://www.autobild.de/artikel/kaufpraemie-fuer-elektroautos-infos-und-antragsformular-8535657.html
Several companies make more electric cars than Tesla does. Nissan is one you've heard of, probably. The Nissan Leaf is the most popular. They also make some all-electric vehicles for business use.
I was looking for a new car this year, and I very much wanted an electric car. So I checked all of the ones available in this country, including the Leaf, the Ionic, a bunch of hybrids and a couple others I forgot. Also a Tesla.
The Leaf or Ionic are the ones I remember clearly, so I'll write about them and ignore the forgettable ones. They are cute cars. The Ionic especially surprised me in a positive way. Very nice car. But they are not in the same class as the Tesla. Their range is laughable and the way they market them even more so (for example, on the Leaf you have to rent the battery - it isn't included in the car price and you can not buy it for any money). They have some way to go before they are serious cars. I might have considered an Ionic as a secondary car for everyday short drives, but I needed a primary car that is suitable for longer trips as well.
While Tesla is certainly strong on the hype front, their cars are considerably closer to being real cars than the competing electronic cars on the market today.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Please go to a huge city without vehicle emissions controls and tell me that EVs would not be cleaner. And when I say huge city, I mean Beijing, Guangzhou, Bangkok, Mumbai, Singapore - somewhere with 10+ million people trying to go about their lives with air thick enough to cut with a knife.
Petrol vehicles increase their pollution contribution with every mile driven. EVs at least have the hope of having a much reduced amount of pollution when charged with renewable energy, and even in the case of being charged with fossil fuel based generation, the electrical generation will be much more efficient than any engine produced for a vehicle.
Why not just give tax breaks up to 40.000$? you can now get a usable EV for those money.
I wanted a Bolt(Opel Ampera-e) but they won't sell them here.
I live in Denmark, A place where we don't give a crap about EVs or green energy any more. In fact, we are probably the only country were the number of EVs on the street went down this year.
The government decided to drop tax breaks for EVs because people were buying Teslas like crazy. With a 180% tax om cars, they didn't stand a chance here.
So they have started to phase in taxes on all EVs and the sales plummeted. I believe it was a combination of higher prices and uncertainty as to what they will think of next in terms of finding ways to tax people. And we can see they already have reinstated a "green" tax on electricity that everyone pays, but EV charging companies didn't had to pay for the electricity they sold for charging EV's. So now charging away from home will be even more expensive ( iirc the kWh price are already 0.8$)
L'Idiot
Ah, the eternal cat & mouse game: government does something, corporations try to find loopholes, government adds more regulations, rinse and repeat.
Price also matters. In my country you get between 2.5 - 3 Ioniq:s (not Ionic) for the price of one Tesla.
There are an awful lot of angry posters in the middle of the night tonight. So many 600 pounders who cannot sleep except in fits and starts of exhaustion, with a long 2 hours until their enablers wake up and feed them their first breakfast morning pizzas or seventeen Seven Eleven roller taquitos.
Me? I'm up shitt8ng a storm of liquid for the 7th time in the last 18 hours. It is strange, your lifestyle. I hope not to see it again.
Paypal was most certainly Elon Musks "multi-billion dollar fraud on the public." Now though, instead of stealing from chumps like you and me, he gets the government to take the money to give to him. Notice that all of his ventures are taxpayer subsidized or directly funded.
I guess this sort of thing will happen whatever the price is set to. But I think it's really more that they don't want to give a tax break to things like the Tesla Roadster, which is essentially just a very expensive toy.
There will be edge cases whatever they set the price to.
To those who claim that the 60000 Euro price limit for the cars was created specifically against Tesla - nope, it was against luxury cars in general, since everybody who can afford a 60000+ Euro car does not really need a 4000 Euro tax break. Also, the subsidies were not only for pure EV, they were also for hybrid models. So the price limit also excludes models from Porsche (Panamera hybrid), Mercedes (S class hybrid), BMW (7 series eDrive) and other big manufacturers.
Tesla cheated, pure and simple. The rules for the subsidies state "the base model of the car must cost below 60000 Euro", so Tesla created an imaginary Model S without any options which would be normal for any car in that price range (parking sensors etc.) which made it squeak in at just below 60000 Euro. That way, they could point at the price list and say "look, base model is below 60000, so all Model S deserve the tax credit!", safe in the knowledge that no customer would actually order that barebone model. Well, the test buyers for the tax credit actually did, and Tesla told them that you cannot actually order it, because Tesla does not produce any vehicles without parking sensors etc. Tesla salesmen even told the test buyers that this model was only on the price list to allow Tesla customers to get the tax credit (by existing on paper). Tesla clearly committed fraud here, and now the customers might have to pay back the tax credit they received.
as you mention singapore, please read that one: https://www.autoblog.com/2016/03/08/tesla-model-s-fined-for-excessive-emissions-in-singapore/
There are EVs which are cleaner, but teslas are typically not. There are multiple reasons why huge li-io-battery-packs are not green/clean. Tesla needs a better solution.
There is a big problem in china, india,..: it doesn't help reducing the smog in the city, if the coal-fired power station is next to the city. There is a far way to go. I share the hope that we will have more renewable energy in the future.
It's just wrong to say EV is clean. And even "cleaner" is not correct for all EVs - especially Tesla EVs.
for example, on the Leaf you have to rent the battery - it isn't included in the car price and you can not buy it for any money
As a (used) Leaf owner, I can confirm that I own the whole damn car - including the battery. It has traveled over 30,000 miles while dropping 1 bar out of 12 for range. The range is still over 80 miles per charge.
It has snow tires on it for Winter driving. The Leaf warms itself up on a timer before I leave for work. I never have to stop at a gas station, and get about 40 miles per day for $1 (roughly $38 in electricity per month).
By the time that I need to purchase a new battery ($5000 at the moment) I will have saved significantly more money in gasoline alone. Outside of tires and windshield washer, maintenance is not an issue.
This is not an advertisement. My other (gasoline) cars are a Mitsubishi, Toyota, and Porsche. The bottom line is that the Leaf is the cheapest car to operate and maintain.
They are not stealing the subsidy any more than the wealthy fucks claiming it
Rear brakes last 5+ years. Either EVs go through them much faster or you drive with your foot on the brake.
...and $450? Are you fucking kidding or are you retarded?
As long as can count on your ICE cars for the long trips, it helps.
So now that global warming is solved can we send back the invaders? Or must we subsidize them instead of giving rebates for electric cars?
He's being raped against his will and you're the one choosing to have sex with another man. You're the faggot.
i8 is a hybrid.
I would love to own one though....
I like BMWs, but the i3... yuck. The i8 is a premium car.
Similar to the i3, the Leaf is about as useful, short drives only and a minor commuter car not good for much else and until recently besieged with problems.
The Volt/Bolt might be the only real contender in the above lists, not sure as I haven't looked at either one personally but they have had favorable reviews. They also happen to be near the same price point as a Model 3.
They all deserve to get their balls electrocuted..
If a specific goal of the policy was to prevent a certain make of car from being included, then there are two things they can do:
1. Explicitly exclude that make (or make + model) from the policy
2. Set the price cap at a level that means even the base version of that car does not qualify
The regulators chose to do neither, instead they negotiated with Tesla to allow their cars to slip through a loophole.
Porsche Panamera Hybrid
Mercedes S Class Hybrid
BMW 7 (eDrive)
Just off top of my head. All of these would be eligible if they were cheaper.
If you got 60k+ for a car, you don't need 4k tax reduction.
We Americans by contrast subsidize Tesla cars so that millionaires don't have to pay full price and elect Donald Trump as our President.
As a (used) Leaf owner, I can confirm that I own the whole damn car - including the battery
Interesting. So that is a country thing (I'm currently living in Austria). The Nissan dealer made it sound like that is general policy. I asked about this point specifically, because it surprised me.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org