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Tesla Motors by the numbers
- coldcode 13y agoWhy does anyone read WSJ anymore?
- gpcz 13y ago> Why does anyone read WSJ anymore? Currently, your post is at DH1 (http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://paulgraham.com/disagree.html). What point in the article do you disagree with and why?
- arethuza 13y agoApologies for going a bit meta, but that would make a pretty good rating scheme for comments on here - DH6 through to AH6...
- pilgrim689 13y agoI wonder if pg considered this: replacing up/down arrows with such a scale (0-name calling, 1-ad hominem, etc.) to force users to think about what up/down means every time they vote.
- kenny_r 13y agoThat's very similar to Slashdot's moderating system, which I think is great.
- josefresco 13y agoUhg. IMHO there's a reason Digg and Reddit (and it's HN offspring) grew to prominence and it's partly due to Slashdot's confusing and archaic moderating system. I've been visiting for years and still don't fully understand, or care to decode how the system of moderating and nested comments works.
- josefresco 13y agoAlong with pointing our which HN rule was violated, how about adding some meat to the debate in order to demonstrate the type of post HN encourages? Such as actual readership/traffic numbers for the WSJ. For example this news piece claiming WSJ numbers are up after Murdoch took over: http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-journal-readership-is-up-20-since-rupert-took-over-2010-5 http://www.businessinsider.com/wall-street-journal-readershi... I'm not saying the news story is accurate, but it does contribute to the conversation whereas the parent comment and yours do not.
- amalag 13y agoI stopped after Murdoch bought them.
- jpeg_hero 13y agoWhat kind of wicked person is motivated to write this up? Hunched over in his dark cave? I just visualized myself 20 years in the future, reading this I saw it as the myopic retrograde reactionary writting of a small minded man, that it is. Soon to be lost on the tides of progress.
- skaevola 13y agoA person who is interested in seeing facts come to light? That these facts threaten your progressive future is irrelevant to the morality of that person.
- rattray 13y agoI agree that it was nice to hear the breakdown of Tesla's financial relationship with US governments (federal and state), but the author's tone was remarkably one-sided, in a way that could in fact be described as "wicked", though I think that's taking it a bit far. To me, those numbers were a cause for celebration: wow, our government is actually effectively encouraging a terrific technology and company.
- skaevola 13y agoSure, it's opinionated, but it's only wicked if you think that viewpoints which disagree with your own are evil. And that is an extremely dangerous idea. By the way, I agree with you; subsidies should be used to promote products with positive externalities.
- josefresco 13y agoI could not find an author credit attached to this piece. I either didn't look hard enough, or the WSJ chose to not include this. Anyone who reads opinions by the WSJ have any background on this?
- ph0rque 13y agoRarely noted is how much this profit is a function of government subsidy and coercion. So let's take apart Tesla by the numbers, if only to give our reader-taxpayers a better sense of what they've paid to make Tesla's owners rich. I don't really want to read further, and it's only the second paragraph.
- pwelch 13y agoAgreed. I know it is a lot to ask that a journalist be impartial but they lost me after this paragraph.
- ultramundane8 13y agoI was also uninterested very early in the article, and I tend to have a comparatively long attention span.
- rossjudson 13y agoI welcome a similar analysis of oil companies by the WSJ. And banks. And Wall Street generally. I suspect I will die waiting for that one.
- adventured 13y agohttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304537904577277440911481180.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230453790457727...
- bob13579 13y agohttp://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147831175584985.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124147831175584985.html
- ams6110 13y agoI have nothing against Tesla. But the fact of the matter is that cars like Tesla make are impractical for the vast majority of drivers. They are doing great selling into a niche market that find the cars appealing, but that proves nothing about the future of electric automobiles for the mass market. None of them would be even as successful as they are without massive support from government grants and tax credits. Free charging is not sustainable, and our current electrical infrastructure won't support massive adoption of plug-in electrics without significant upgrading. It will be decades if not longer before electric vehicles are a workable option for most people.
- nicpottier 13y agoI don't understand your argument. It will be decades before the grid is ready? Yes, so? The only way forward is a step at a time, and Tesla is showing that electric vehicles can be practical and also playing their part in starting to build the infrastructure to make it practical for all. Of course the grid isn't ready now, but you better believe they are seeing the writing on the wall and adapting. The entire world isn't going to switch to electric cars overnight, nor in ten years, it will happen gradually and so will the infrastructure.
- ghostfish 13y agoAside from cost, what do you think makes a Tesla impractical for the "vast majority of drivers"?
- Dwolb 13y agoThe post contains a fact, but is there a recommendation? Is the suggestion to cease all electric vehicle R&D, marketing, and consumer adoption? Curious.
- rossjudson 13y agoYou need an editor, sir! Your true meaning is lost. Let me rewrite that for you. I don't like Tesla. A Tesla car isn't practical for me, so by extension it's not practical for most. Massive popularity and interest in buying them proves nothing about the future because I don't have one. Other electric cars failed after receiving public support, and therefore Tesla will fail. Even though nobody claims free charging is sustainable, I claim that non-existent claim will lead to failure, because it's impossible to change our current electrical infrastructure. Ever. And a decade into the future? That's crazy! We need to deal with what's in front of us for the next ten minutes! And after that, we'll do it again!
- nmcfarl 13y agoI think that large government subsidies are inevitably going to be needed if you wish to start a car company these days. They may be inevitable if you just want to keep one running - very few car companies have made it through the last decade without some form of government help. -- Plus I'm pretty sure the WSJ would be decry Tesla's stupidity if the left this money on the table. These incentives weren't designed fir Tesla, they just take advantage of them.
- ams6110 13y agovery few car companies have made it through the last decade without some form of government help. So keeping dinosaur companies on life support with tax dollars is a good thing?
- jaynos 13y agoIf the alternative is not enough supply to meet demand,yes. Private capital might be better, but how much would private firms be willing to risk on a new company? Also, could that company scale up to build 1 million cars per year to supply American demand? GM was not run very intelligently in the '90s (and '80s and '00s), so I definitely feel the urge to let them die, but the economic damage of the 100,000+ layoffs would cost more than the auto bailout.
- refurb 13y agoI don't understand this line of thinking, particularly from the Hacker News crowd. Nobody seems to care if taxi drivers lose out from services like Lyft and Uber. It's called "disruption" and is apparently good for the economy. A dinosaur like GM loses market share to imports and the same crowd thinks gov't subsidies are required to keep an inefficient industry alive.
- nmcfarl 13y agoBoy was I not saying that. I’d was rather pointing out that the whole industry was so dysfunctional that if you are so much as surviving in it, you are most likely taking part in that disfunction.
- ebbv 13y agoThere are so many things wrong with this article. First of all, Tesla is paying back its federal loan 9 years early. So all the stuff about what we taxpayers have paid for is bogus. The carbon credits issue is brought up as though we already agree that it's wrong/bad with no discussion. I don't agree. I think it's clearly the right way to go, and other manufacturers should be moving to EVs. The phrase "environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg" should qualify as slander against all environmentalists. He is the opposite of an environmentalist. Every step of the way he's been arguing against fighting climate change. He's a shill for the status quo, and whenever you see someone cite him, you can rest assured they are arguing for oil, coal, etc. Tesla is about the future. Anyone without vision is going to clearly be upset about the compromises we have to make now in order to get us where we want to be. But those people would be the same ones moaning about how much money we're wasting on NASA in 1964.
- skaevola 13y agoThe article mentions paying back the federal loans. It's claim that we taxpayers are paying through government subsidies ($7,500 federal, up to $6,000 state) and mandated credits. Whether that's a good thing or not depends on your political beliefs. Frankly, I think it's great that a new alternative to gasoline powered vehicles is becoming viable, but these other factors are also worth thinking about.
- homerowilson 13y agoI agree strongly with ebbv and further take issue with a point in the article: "Taxpayers pay first so Tesla can build the cars and again to help the wealthy buy them." It turns out that anyone subject to AMT (my guess is a substantial portion of Tesla buyers) does not in fact qualify for the federal tax credit.
- newbie12 13y agoTaxpayers still took a huge downside risk with the loan to Tesla, and that loan has to be measured against the overall government loan program's losses, which is a massive failure costing billions.
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- bjourne 13y agoWhat a whiner. Truth is all major companies receive state subsidies in some form. Auto makers get cheap loans, banks get bailouts, agriculture get beneficial import tariffs, pharmaceutical get free medicine research, defense companies get new wars etc. If they don't, they can usually bitch and moan and threaten to move production to a third world country unless they get a tax rebate. Makes sense that a company that can be beneficial to society should also get it.
- bob13579 13y agoThe difference is that not one company is blatantly favored over another in those industries.
- calinet6 13y agoThis reads like an Anton Ego review from Ratatouille before the rat hit him with the thing he could never see coming in a million years. Seriously, read it in Anton Ego's voice. It's fantastic. Obviously completely short-sighted and narrow minded, as is expected from the WSJ. Move along, nothing to see here.
- bradfordarner 13y agoIt is fascinating to step back and realize that this WSJ article is indicative of the fact that Tesla has yet to 'cross the chasm'. I can't wait to get a Tesla and most of my friends are of the same mind, but we are clearly still among the minority. While most of us associated with the tech world are naturally supportive of Elon Musk and cheering him on with force, we must still be the minority. Man...I'm such an early adopter! What a shameful thing to be! (Read strong tone of sarcasm) The underlying principle of the article seems to be one of anti-subsidy, a position which is imminently defensible in light of many problematic government subsidies. Tesla still has a lot to prove. That being said, the author failed to set up a balanced argument since he did not mention the fact that most long-lasting companies have been subsidized by the government at one time or another in their history and many at their infancy. Did I mention that Elon Musk is freaking awesome!!!
- jmduke 13y agoCriticisms of Tesla (both posts and comments) seem to draw an unwarranted level of ire on HN. I think its the combination of Elon Musk's personality, the increasing inevitability of the ubiquity of electric cars, and the tendency to use Tesla v. <other carmakers> as an underdog allegory (Lord knows how many times "Tesla" and "disrupt" appear in the same sentence.) A lot of the comments on this article seem needlessly ad hominem, calling the author a "whiner" and "wicked." While I don't see eye-to-eye with every point the author makes, I think the underlying argument -- that a lot of the praise of Tesla's results so far has been under the assumption that its purely the car responsible for these profits. (The crudely phrased press release about Tesla paying back loans "before any other US manufacturer" certainly doesn't help the notion that Tesla is loosely playing the marketing game.) It's entirely possible to laud Musk and Tesla's work so far while also being cognizant that, hey, the company isn't sterling and there's still a lot of work to be done before we consider the Tesla a success.
- Goronmon 13y agoI think the problem I have with the article is that it makes no effort to truly analyze the issue at hand. The important questions revolve around whether such programs are important as long term investment or whether investments in Tesla couldn't have been spent better elsewhere. Instead the author seems to make the issue too simple. 1) Spending tax payer money is bad. 2) Tesla is taking tax payer money. 3) Tesla is bad. Or to pull examples from the article. But such a success must still be measured against other taxpayer losses and misallocated capital. Yes, and where are the author's measurements? Why should middle-class taxpayers whose incomes are falling still pay to subsidize the purchase of cars that only the affluent can afford, and then partly as a gesture of their superior environmental virtue? When does the rest of America get its return on Tesla's profits? And why doesn't the author attempt to answer these questions? Of course, you could assume these are rhetorical, but again, I'm not sure why that's useful.
- turkeybone 13y agoThe more angry and nervous that Tesla makes people (car dealers, other car companies, fellows like the author), the more convinced that they will have significant impact in the future.
- MikeCapone 13y agoRemoving incentives for EVs would be fine if we could somehow retroactively remove incentives, direct and indirect, for oil and gas cars. Just military actions and bases around the world to secure oil probably runs in the hundreds of billions added to the taxpayers' bill. It's not a few millions, temporary (incentives for EVs won't last forever), that would be at the top of my list of things to cut in a trillion dollar economy.