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I love that pie chart. So crony-capitalism subsidies paid to Standard Oil in the 1930's mean that its Elon Musk's turn to get federal loans and rebates. "It's h

• lj3 10y ago
  > There's no reason someone shelling out $100,000 for a car should get a $20,000 rebate from the government. The fact he's single handedly building out a nation-wide electric car charging infrastructure counts for nothing?
  • rahrahrah 10y ago
    Hold on. Who elected him entrepreneur-in-chief? If he manages to pull that off, he will have a large stake on a successful company. Let him play by the same rules as everyone else.
    • lj3 10y ago
      > Who elected him entrepreneur-in-chief? Nobody. > Let him play by the same rules as everyone else. He is. The building of publicly accessible next-gen infrastructure should be rewarded, especially when the government isn't willing to do it. > If he manages to pull that off, he will have a large stake on a successful company. That's the point. He's also taking the risk that he's sinking millions (billions?) of dollars into an infrastructure that might go the way of the betamax.
    • deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  • norikki 10y ago
    Correct. If the federal government wants to build or subsidize an electric charging network then it should build or subsidize an electric charging network, not luxury cars.
    • lj3 10y ago
      What's the point of subsidizing a charging network if nobody can afford the cars that use it? Tesla isn't the only company being subsidized for building electric cars. I swear, it's like some people around here have no concept of history or economics. How do you think the oil, electricity, telephone and data infrastructures of this country was built, anyway?
• nextweek2 10y ago
  It's called a reverse robin hood tax in England. As a question, how much sales tax is there on a 100,000 dollar car?
  • woofyman 10y ago
    There's no federal sales tax. They're local and vary from state to state and city to city.
• TYPE_FASTER 10y ago
  > I love that pie chart. So crony-capitalism subsidies paid to Standard Oil in the 1930's No. Now. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/12/us-taxpayers-subsidising-worlds-biggest-fossil-fuel-companies https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/may/12/us-taxpa...
  • norikki 10y ago
    Obviously oil companies today still get subsidies from the government. The most egregious of which are the liability limitations on deep ocean drilling as evidenced by the Deep Water Horizon disaster. The rig never would have been built if the US Congress didn't indemnify BP for all damages over $70 million dollars. The article in the post tries to claim that the ratio of fossil fuel subsidies to renewable is 100 to 1. But the time frame of that pie chart belies a serious misrepresentation of fact. "Cumulative Historical Federal Subsidies" suggests all federal subsidies throughout all of history, which would include subsidies paid in the 1930's. It would be much more enlightening to know that ratio just for the past 5 years.
• akytt 10y ago
  That subsidy goes towards Chevy volt as well. And it is turning electic cars from an awkward piece of geek gatery to something a wide public is actually considering. Money well spent, I'd say.
  • maxerickson 10y ago
    The question then is whether the tax rebates are driving battery research. Because that's what drives the performance/cost ratio of electric vehicles more than anything else (and that's what people care about, how much does it cost and how well does it work). People always go on about the EV1 and how the owners loved it and wanted to buy it, but they don't mean they wanted to buy it for the $100,000 plus it would have really cost. And then somehow, 15 years later, we have cheaper electric cars that have much better performance characteristics. Except it isn't a mystery, batteries got a whole lot better. In another 5 or 10 years, batteries will be even better and we will have people ranting about how it shouldn't have taken so long for practical electric cars, never mind the stupid predictable curve of battery progress you are trying to show them.
    • norikki 10y ago
      No! We shouldn't prioritize research so that the technology can improve. We should shell out billions of taxpayer dollars on existing technology that isn't competitive without subsidies so that politically connected businesses like Solyndra and their investors can pocket millions of your dollars and then go bankrupt. \s :-P
• konspence 10y ago
  You're forgetting that we have a progressive tax.
• FullMtlAlcoholc 10y ago
  Your myopic focus on the direct subsidies that Tesla receives from the US government blinds you. The price you pay at the pump for gasoline does not capture all the costs. The true price of gas is much higher and camouflaged by myriad direct and indirect costs associated with maintaining our oil economy. National subsidies to oil, gas and coal producers in the US amount to $20.5 billion annually, with almost all of those subsidies being received in the form of tax or royalty breaks that benefit producers. Many of the largest US national subsidies take the form of tax exemptions for specific production activities and investments. For example, Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) are a tax-advantaged investment structure with an estimated cost of $3.9 billion per year. Another example is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. BP claimed a $10 billion tax deduction due to an estimated $32.2 billion in cleanup costs. In 2015, BP reached a final settlement with the US government and five state governments totalling $20.8 billion. However, only $5.5 billion of this is in the form of a non-tax-deductible penalty, and the remaining $15 billion can be written off by BP. Also, this shale revolution America had is over as the underlying geology—deeply buried shale rock that contains diffuse hydrocarbons—looms as a more fundamental limit on fracking's future. Recent projections indicate that by decade's end or a few years after, U.S. oil production from fracking will likely flatten out as supplies are depleted. Currently, US shale is less than $1 cheaper than importing it from Nigeria, Mexico, or Venezuela. Foreign oil is cheaper and refineries prefer it after investing heavily in assets to process heavy oil. And this is without mentioning the 800lb gorilla and the elephant in the room. When foreign oil is cheaper, we become dependent on receiving it from countries that are either politically unstable or at odds with the U.S. subjecting the American economy to occasional supply disruptions, price hikes, and loss of wealth. Then there's the whole climate change thing, the huge costs to deal with that and the global instability it promotes. Arctic sea ice will be almost completely gone in a decade or so, and then America and the world will either be dependent on Russia for oil and gas or competing with them and incurring costs for the eventual military buildup. Russia openly and brazenly interfering with the US election tosses out a chance of cooperation with the newly forming shipping/trading routes and access to oil and gas deposits. So yeah, this is a fucking bargain in comparison. It's an investment in future security and prosperity. It's a transparent investment as opposed to the opaque pricing of fossil fuels. It is meant to stimulate and hasten the adoption of clean energy vehicles. And as a bonus, it doesn't totally fuck up the environment and destroy biodiversity. Much like SpaceX, it is a model for public/private partnerships. Honestly, in what reality is Elon Musk a robber baron on the scale of Rockefeller? He's not content to take his paypal money and shrewdly invest it. He's investing his own fortune and trying to solve the biggest problems we face as a species through the creation of new technoogies. It's understandable since it is rare since most people do not take externalities, whether they be positive or negative, into account