6 ms·

Subsidies Awarded to Tesla Inc: at least $2,829,855,494 and Counting

76 points by mrtksn 3y ago

kdamica 3y ago
It is good to award subsidies to manufacturers when what they create is aligned with our country’s environmental or industrial policy goals.
- dragontamer 3y ago
  https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/EEOC-v.-Tesla.pdf https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/EE... I don't think Tesla has our country's policy goals in mind.
  - kdamica 3y ago
    The allegations here are very serious, but it can be simultaneously true that a company is doing important work, and that they need to fix deep problems in their workplace culture.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
dangus 3y ago
Automobile-based transportation and city design is inherently subsidized. It’s the biggest form of socialism that American individualism accepts unlike any other: free parking for everyone, free roads for everyone. It doesn’t matter how much weight or size your vehicle has, being charged money for parking or paying a lot of money at the gas pump is seen as an assault on freedom itself. I believe I read that Massachusetts spends something like $12,000 per capita on public roads and highways. And yet we keep telling ourselves that transit oriented development and mass transit is “expensive.” in the status quo of typical car-focused urban development, the US government needs to subsidize EV car companies or else other countries with lower labor costs will demolish the US automotive industry and consumers will be forfeiting too much of their earnings on the basic needs of daily transportation as oil becomes more and more scarce. The big 3 automakers are already propped up by the chicken tax. It’s no coincidence that trucks drive most of the profit of US automakers and that they’ve been moved from utilitarian work vehicles to family cars to maximize sales. If you sell a family a sedan it’ll be low profit margin, competing with dozens of other options. Sell them an F-150 and you enjoy an oligopoly with a small subset of brands that have factories in the US. I’d like automotive subsidy to be redirected into fixing urban design mistakes and meaningfully reduce car trips per capita. I’m not talking about extreme stuff like eliminating cars entirely, I’m talking about a situation where the majority of people don’t feel the need to get in a car to meet 100% of their daily needs.
- wholesomepotato 3y ago
  Oh yeah. Because most of the tax revenue comes from rural areas, and is only then funneled to support these unproductive city dwellers wasting it on all this pointless infrastructure.
  - dangus 3y ago
    You’re misinterpreting me. What I’m saying is that people in urban areas are overspending on infrastructure when simple adjustments to city planning would mean less of a need for extra infrastructure per person. This applies to Suburbs as well. Many American cities that people think are too rural for cycling or bus service are actually very populated and only have issues with car alternatives because of planning mistakes like non-grid subdivisions, front-facing parking lots, and human-hostile road designs (no/poor bike lanes, high traffic speeds, dead space allocated for high speed traffic infrastructure like merge lanes and onramps)
- thehappypm 3y ago
  Given that $12,000 per person would come out to $84B, and the entire FY24 budget for Massachusetts is $56B, you’re full of shit
  - dangus 3y ago
    That figure also included unaccounted negative externalities, like the future earnings of those who die in car crashes. The value of a human life in the US is estimated at around $10 million, so if you have 30,000 people dying in car crashes nationwide per year you’re looking at prorated losses in the hundreds of billions.
xbmcuser 3y ago
It is a good thing that Tesla got and is getting subsidies same for solar panel and most other renewable tech. Without it China would be the leader in electric vehicles. Looking at how cost of batteries as well as solar panels is decreasing every year. China dominated manufacturing with cheap labor in the last 20-25 years. And as more automated manufacturing comes online it would have dominated that as well as they would have cheaper electricity and transport. Forget pollution etc with the current trajectory electric cars and solar electricity will keep getting cheaper so if US and other countries do not subsidies and promote manufacturing now they will become uncompetitive in the near future.
- justapassenger 3y ago
  > Without it China would be the leader in electric vehicles China is the leader in EVs at this point, like it or not.
helf 3y ago
[dead]
klysm 3y ago
Good. Things with positive externalities should be subsidized
TapWaterBandit 3y ago
This is the more interesting page of that website imo. https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals Shows the companies that receive subsidies and how much. I will note that Tesla isn't close to being the largest recipient of subsidies but recieves by far the most outrage.
- mgiannopoulos 3y ago
  Somehow Boeing getting billions is not sexy enough to discuss on the internet, unless we can fit in “Musk” in the headline in some way.
  - refulgentis 3y ago
    I don't think it's the case that discussing X means people are afraid to discuss Y. No cover up, bias, or suspicion needed to explain why that's not mentioned explicitly every time other companies are subsidized. :)
    - mgiannopoulos 3y ago
      I didn’t say anything about people being afraid to discuss anything. But a search on this site for discussion on subsidies to other companies than Tesla would probably get much less results.
  - dartos 3y ago
    I mean we need safe reliable planes more than we need teslas cars.
  - ohthatsnotright 3y ago
    Boeing hasn't repeatedly shat on subsidies and said they're self-made while pocketing massive government benefits.
    - olddustytrail 3y ago
      It seems perfectly reasonable to me to want a subsidy abolished and also use it while it exists. Presumably they want it abolished for everyone not just themselves.
mgiannopoulos 3y ago
What’s the point of the page if the information is incomplete ? For example the number about the 466 million federal loan I believe does not include the fact that it was paid back with interest (so taxpayers made money on that).
- justapassenger 3y ago
  > For example the number about the 466 million federal loan I believe does not include the fact that it was paid back with interest (so taxpayers made money on that). Trump is found guilty of fraud, even tho banks made money of his fraudulent deals.
- grotorea 3y ago
  That is still a subsidy, no? It's money that materially improved the health of the company. Does everyone and every company who wanted 466 millions had it available? And was the interest and other loan conditions market rate?
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    The subsidy here is the difference between the regular bank interest and the actual interest. Likely in single digit millions
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- mrtksn 3y ago
  I guess the point is listing the public loans and grants awarded to a businessman who happens to be trying to influence the government? Can be useful in many ways, for example can be a talking point about the wonders of having a federal government. Can be useful for having a context when a businessmen campaigns against taxes and subsidies. Can be used against certain businessmen claiming they did everything by themselves, unlike those unsuccessful poor people or lazy immigrants. It's something interesting to keep in mind when demanding drastic changes on how the world should work.
chaosbolt 3y ago
Also: Boeing 15 billion dollars, amazon 11b, intel 8b, ford 7.7b, foxconn 4.8b, etc. This organised propaganda against Tesla needs to stop, sure Musk is an a*hole, is he an evil a*hole like some othe CEOs? I don't know... Electric cars are still something beneficial to the sustainability of the car industry and the environment. And Ford still got more money... Foxconn uses slaves to make a luxury device that's marketed as environmentaly friendly because it now uses the same cable forced on it by the EU that others used for a decade... and it got more than Tesla. Amazon is just an online store and cloud provider, and the way it treats its low level workers is as close to slavery as the law permits it to be, and it still got more etc. I mean you can get away with a post like this on Reddit but you should at least expect HN to have people will enough critical thinking skills to see what your title is suggesting and why what it's suggesting is both wrong when put into context and also politically pushed with how much we see it repeated online.
- justapassenger 3y ago
  Strong whataboutism in your comment. Is pointing out issues in the company that whole tech world was salivating over for almost a decade now a propaganda? A company who repeatedly lied to capitalize on the positive press?
- ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
  > This organised propaganda against Tesla needs to stop, sure Musk is an a*hole, is he an evil a*hole like some othe CEOs? I don't know... In your post, you say that don't know. It seems others do, based on the responses to your post. I recommend those who do not know something, consult those who do, in order to learn, and thus know. As for me, it depends on whether you consider toxic narcissism "evil". In any case, elmu's words and actions and behaviors are not those of a person seeking less attention, and for every internet plea of "leave elmu alone!", there is a twitter post by him effectively pleading "look at me!!!1", so the cries of "propaganda" ring pretty hollow.
- didntknowya 3y ago
  who would've thought a simple fact about tesla would be so triggering. IMO the post was quite neutral so hold off on your bias.
thelastgallon 3y ago
To put this in context, fossil fuel subsidies, just from 2015 - 2022: $42 trillion Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Reached $7 Trillion in 2022: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022
- edgyquant 3y ago
  Seems dishonest to compare a single American company to a global industry containing way more than just transportation fuel.
  - l33t7332273 3y ago
    Even more dishonest is including implicit subsidies right next to actual cash payouts.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  This number appears to include the implicit subsidies too. The explicit subsidies seem to average at about 1/5th of the implicit ones. Implicit subsidies appear to be stuff like not putting a charge on the cost for external impacts, i.e. impact to health. The implicit subsidies to electric car companies could similar or even greater, as it appears that most of the microplastics come from car tires, as discussed recently[0]. The impact of electric cars could be quite big because they are significantly heavier and large part of the emissions attributable to a car come at the manufacturing stage anyway. It’s also the whole global economy, so kind of hard to compare with Tesla Inc subsidies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37726539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37726539 Not defending the fossil subsidies, just a poor comparison. Sorry for breaking this narrative though, apparently it's very unpopular thing to do.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
thelastgallon 3y ago
Why Louisiana Stays Poor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38 This video is about fossil fuel subsidies in just one zip code which makes it the richest and poorest zip code at the same time. $2857 per capita subsidies via Industrial Tax Exemption Program. National average is $291 per capita, Texas $89 per capita. Skip to 5:22 for the explanation.

76 points by mrtksn 3y ago

It is good to award subsidies to manufacturers when what they create is aligned with our country’s environmental or industrial policy goals.

dragontamer 3y ago
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/EEOC-v.-Tesla.pdf https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/EE... I don't think Tesla has our country's policy goals in mind.
- kdamica 3y ago
  The allegations here are very serious, but it can be simultaneously true that a company is doing important work, and that they need to fix deep problems in their workplace culture.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

dangus 3y ago

Automobile-based transportation and city design is inherently subsidized. It’s the biggest form of socialism that American individualism accepts unlike any other: free parking for everyone, free roads for everyone. It doesn’t matter how much weight or size your vehicle has, being charged money for parking or paying a lot of money at the gas pump is seen as an assault on freedom itself. I believe I read that Massachusetts spends something like $12,000 per capita on public roads and highways. And yet we keep telling ourselves that transit oriented development and mass transit is “expensive.” in the status quo of typical car-focused urban development, the US government needs to subsidize EV car companies or else other countries with lower labor costs will demolish the US automotive industry and consumers will be forfeiting too much of their earnings on the basic needs of daily transportation as oil becomes more and more scarce. The big 3 automakers are already propped up by the chicken tax. It’s no coincidence that trucks drive most of the profit of US automakers and that they’ve been moved from utilitarian work vehicles to family cars to maximize sales. If you sell a family a sedan it’ll be low profit margin, competing with dozens of other options. Sell them an F-150 and you enjoy an oligopoly with a small subset of brands that have factories in the US. I’d like automotive subsidy to be redirected into fixing urban design mistakes and meaningfully reduce car trips per capita. I’m not talking about extreme stuff like eliminating cars entirely, I’m talking about a situation where the majority of people don’t feel the need to get in a car to meet 100% of their daily needs.

wholesomepotato 3y ago
Oh yeah. Because most of the tax revenue comes from rural areas, and is only then funneled to support these unproductive city dwellers wasting it on all this pointless infrastructure.
- dangus 3y ago
  You’re misinterpreting me. What I’m saying is that people in urban areas are overspending on infrastructure when simple adjustments to city planning would mean less of a need for extra infrastructure per person. This applies to Suburbs as well. Many American cities that people think are too rural for cycling or bus service are actually very populated and only have issues with car alternatives because of planning mistakes like non-grid subdivisions, front-facing parking lots, and human-hostile road designs (no/poor bike lanes, high traffic speeds, dead space allocated for high speed traffic infrastructure like merge lanes and onramps)
thehappypm 3y ago
Given that $12,000 per person would come out to $84B, and the entire FY24 budget for Massachusetts is $56B, you’re full of shit
- dangus 3y ago
  That figure also included unaccounted negative externalities, like the future earnings of those who die in car crashes. The value of a human life in the US is estimated at around $10 million, so if you have 30,000 people dying in car crashes nationwide per year you’re looking at prorated losses in the hundreds of billions.

xbmcuser 3y ago

It is a good thing that Tesla got and is getting subsidies same for solar panel and most other renewable tech. Without it China would be the leader in electric vehicles. Looking at how cost of batteries as well as solar panels is decreasing every year. China dominated manufacturing with cheap labor in the last 20-25 years. And as more automated manufacturing comes online it would have dominated that as well as they would have cheaper electricity and transport. Forget pollution etc with the current trajectory electric cars and solar electricity will keep getting cheaper so if US and other countries do not subsidies and promote manufacturing now they will become uncompetitive in the near future.

justapassenger 3y ago
> Without it China would be the leader in electric vehicles China is the leader in EVs at this point, like it or not.

helf 3y ago

[dead]

klysm 3y ago

Good. Things with positive externalities should be subsidized

TapWaterBandit 3y ago

This is the more interesting page of that website imo. https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals https://subsidytracker.goodjobsfirst.org/megadeals Shows the companies that receive subsidies and how much. I will note that Tesla isn't close to being the largest recipient of subsidies but recieves by far the most outrage.

mgiannopoulos 3y ago
Somehow Boeing getting billions is not sexy enough to discuss on the internet, unless we can fit in “Musk” in the headline in some way.
- refulgentis 3y ago
  I don't think it's the case that discussing X means people are afraid to discuss Y. No cover up, bias, or suspicion needed to explain why that's not mentioned explicitly every time other companies are subsidized. :)
  - mgiannopoulos 3y ago
    I didn’t say anything about people being afraid to discuss anything. But a search on this site for discussion on subsidies to other companies than Tesla would probably get much less results.
- dartos 3y ago
  I mean we need safe reliable planes more than we need teslas cars.
- ohthatsnotright 3y ago
  Boeing hasn't repeatedly shat on subsidies and said they're self-made while pocketing massive government benefits.
  - olddustytrail 3y ago
    It seems perfectly reasonable to me to want a subsidy abolished and also use it while it exists. Presumably they want it abolished for everyone not just themselves.

mgiannopoulos 3y ago

What’s the point of the page if the information is incomplete ? For example the number about the 466 million federal loan I believe does not include the fact that it was paid back with interest (so taxpayers made money on that).

justapassenger 3y ago
> For example the number about the 466 million federal loan I believe does not include the fact that it was paid back with interest (so taxpayers made money on that). Trump is found guilty of fraud, even tho banks made money of his fraudulent deals.
grotorea 3y ago
That is still a subsidy, no? It's money that materially improved the health of the company. Does everyone and every company who wanted 466 millions had it available? And was the interest and other loan conditions market rate?
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  The subsidy here is the difference between the regular bank interest and the actual interest. Likely in single digit millions
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mrtksn 3y ago
I guess the point is listing the public loans and grants awarded to a businessman who happens to be trying to influence the government? Can be useful in many ways, for example can be a talking point about the wonders of having a federal government. Can be useful for having a context when a businessmen campaigns against taxes and subsidies. Can be used against certain businessmen claiming they did everything by themselves, unlike those unsuccessful poor people or lazy immigrants. It's something interesting to keep in mind when demanding drastic changes on how the world should work.

chaosbolt 3y ago

Also: Boeing 15 billion dollars, amazon 11b, intel 8b, ford 7.7b, foxconn 4.8b, etc. This organised propaganda against Tesla needs to stop, sure Musk is an a*hole, is he an evil a*hole like some othe CEOs? I don't know... Electric cars are still something beneficial to the sustainability of the car industry and the environment. And Ford still got more money... Foxconn uses slaves to make a luxury device that's marketed as environmentaly friendly because it now uses the same cable forced on it by the EU that others used for a decade... and it got more than Tesla. Amazon is just an online store and cloud provider, and the way it treats its low level workers is as close to slavery as the law permits it to be, and it still got more etc. I mean you can get away with a post like this on Reddit but you should at least expect HN to have people will enough critical thinking skills to see what your title is suggesting and why what it's suggesting is both wrong when put into context and also politically pushed with how much we see it repeated online.

justapassenger 3y ago
Strong whataboutism in your comment. Is pointing out issues in the company that whole tech world was salivating over for almost a decade now a propaganda? A company who repeatedly lied to capitalize on the positive press?
ImPostingOnHN 3y ago
> This organised propaganda against Tesla needs to stop, sure Musk is an a*hole, is he an evil a*hole like some othe CEOs? I don't know... In your post, you say that don't know. It seems others do, based on the responses to your post. I recommend those who do not know something, consult those who do, in order to learn, and thus know. As for me, it depends on whether you consider toxic narcissism "evil". In any case, elmu's words and actions and behaviors are not those of a person seeking less attention, and for every internet plea of "leave elmu alone!", there is a twitter post by him effectively pleading "look at me!!!1", so the cries of "propaganda" ring pretty hollow.
didntknowya 3y ago
who would've thought a simple fact about tesla would be so triggering. IMO the post was quite neutral so hold off on your bias.

thelastgallon 3y ago

To put this in context, fossil fuel subsidies, just from 2015 - 2022: $42 trillion Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Reached $7 Trillion in 2022: https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022 https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuel-subsidies-2022

edgyquant 3y ago
Seems dishonest to compare a single American company to a global industry containing way more than just transportation fuel.
- l33t7332273 3y ago
  Even more dishonest is including implicit subsidies right next to actual cash payouts.
mrtksn 3y ago
This number appears to include the implicit subsidies too. The explicit subsidies seem to average at about 1/5th of the implicit ones. Implicit subsidies appear to be stuff like not putting a charge on the cost for external impacts, i.e. impact to health. The implicit subsidies to electric car companies could similar or even greater, as it appears that most of the microplastics come from car tires, as discussed recently[0]. The impact of electric cars could be quite big because they are significantly heavier and large part of the emissions attributable to a car come at the manufacturing stage anyway. It’s also the whole global economy, so kind of hard to compare with Tesla Inc subsidies. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37726539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37726539 Not defending the fossil subsidies, just a poor comparison. Sorry for breaking this narrative though, apparently it's very unpopular thing to do.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

thelastgallon 3y ago

Why Louisiana Stays Poor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWTic9btP38 This video is about fossil fuel subsidies in just one zip code which makes it the richest and poorest zip code at the same time. $2857 per capita subsidies via Industrial Tax Exemption Program. National average is $291 per capita, Texas $89 per capita. Skip to 5:22 for the explanation.