LA Times does some Tesla Bashing

Lutz? Musk? Both?

 

I don't think this is an economic question but really a political one. Agricultural, corporate, and oil subsidies or that carried interest loophole for the venture capitalist and hedge fund managers are much higher than "green subsidies" in the US, but there is a certain political class (and it isn't libertarians) that likes lots of pork but somehow hates anything going to "green".

Did you know in most years, the US taxpayer subsidises Toyota, a foreign corporation, more than Tesla? That the biggest subsidies tesla gets were carved out for toyota and gm? But you want to exclude a company that is producing american jobs to keep the status quo, because its cars are expensive. How much does a Lexus LSh cost? Here is one list of corportate welfare.
Last year out of the $14.3B in subsidies GM,Ford, Fiat, Shell, Tesla, toyota and hyundai got from the us taxpayer (washington post in order of money recieved), tesla got 9%. I would think if you would single out a company it would be the top one, or the ones taking the money to maintain the status quo oil as the only transportation policy, not the one trying to innovate and change things.

I'm not sure I understand, you want to keep subsidizing oil and car companies to keep us dependant on oil, but exculde the ones that may make things better. Or would you start with those other car subsidies? fossil fuel, agriculture, the ones that actually are a big part of the budget. When I listen to people that really want to cut, tesla isn't even the conversation because it is so small compared to the wasteful corporate welfare congress has enacted.

Yeah read the comments, that guy is full of it. and people knew it back then.

I think his main thesis is the company can't grow and he wrote it 2 years ago before, well it grew a lot, and stock price increased a great deal. Here is the important quote.

Somehow he thought there was no demand, and battery prices would not fall. Last year tesla sold 31,000 cars contrary to the how can you sell more than 5000/quarter in this piece. The gigafactory will go live next year cutting battery costs even further (gigafactory is subsidized mainly by nevada taxpayers over the next 20 years in return for "green jobs" that have to materialize or the subsidy gets cut off.) This year tesla should see more than 50% growth in volume and added more battery and cost and range to the base instead of removing it. The big volume will be in the model 3 with lower battery costs though. Watch it happen.

 

the problem is, oil subsidies go back a long way, are basically 'buried' in the budget, and rarely get media attention. so taxpayers are left to focus on what they read/watch.

 

Old thread, new news on Los Angeles, Tesla batteries, and the Aliso Canyon disaster.

Jan. 30, 2017 Bloomberg article - " Tesla’s Battery Revolution Just Reached Critical Mass." article by Tom Randall.
. . . . . Tesla’s Battery Revolution Just Reached Critical Mass - Bloomberg
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The writer credits electric cars, like Prius, with enabling the technology by driving battery cost down, etc.
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From the article: ". . . The new battery projects were commissioned in response to a fossil-fuel disaster—the natural gas leak at Aliso Canyon, near the Los Angeles neighborhood of Porter Ranch. It released thousands of tons of methane into the air before it was sealed last February. . . . "

Some other grid backup battery projects have failed or proven currently uneconomical. One project tried using lead acid batteries, but the project went belly-up when batteries needed replacing much earlier than the vendor's "guarantee". I think the vendor went bankrupt after that.

 

it gets no press out here, which may be part of the problem.