Tesla vs Rent Seekers - A Case Study

[malchior]

I had some thoughts about the Sandy Munro video that was posted over in the BEV EBG thread.

I think Sandy is raising an important issue talking about the strategic issues vis a vis EVs and China. It comes off a little jingoistic but he is right there. We are increasingly going to be in a technology race with the Chinese and it will have major STRATEGIC impacts over the next half century. The Chinese are thinking long-term while we are mired in our corrupt politics. I'll get to digging into that issue but note that Munro gets tantalizing close to the real root issue. I suspect he held back but don't know enough about his background to be entirely sure. For example, what he calls it coddling, I think of it as the major manufacturers leveraging relationships with bought politicians to hold Tesla back to defend what they believe is their share of the rents.

The big reason Tesla is seeing a slew of investigations and getting negative press is partially [mostly likely] because they simply lack influence with policy makers. It is Tesla's number one "mistake" IMO. Microsoft had major issues with this in the late 90s to early 00s. Google learned from Microsoft and went in hard. Uber and Tesla did band together to form a lobbying group at the end of last year but overall Tesla's spend is anemic. Less than a million dollars per year over the last 5 years. Google was spending a million dollars a year in 2007 and had grown lobbying efforts to $15M in 2013 and spend much more now.

Another issue is Tesla has opened itself to attack by overpromising and pushing boundaries without enough messaging. And getting messaging right is hard when you've dissolved your Public Relations department. I get that Musk thinks these are wastes and just wants to build a great product but a great product only gets you so far in this game.

Anyway, to finish up while it might seem unfair to call failing to pay to play a mistake, in reality the United States is a corrupt dinosaur. You have to play by the rules here even when it is distasteful. And that means you have to tussle with not only bought politicians but the major political alliances like UAW. Until Tesla builds out a PR and lobbying capability and starts playing offense instead of just defense they are going to be tractor beamed with nuisance actions meant to slow them down. The good news is I think Musk is stubborn enough to just keep barreling ahead. I wish him luck.

;tldr Tesla is 5-10 years ahead of the big money players with influence over policy makers and they are using their influence to throw traps/mines in Tesla's path to give them time to catch up.

[Zaxxon]

Don't have time for a fuller response right now, but I can quickly say that having watched the company extremely closely (many folks would say far too closely) for the past 8+ years, I agree with the outline of what you're saying. Tesla is the most American-made vehicle manufacturer at present and has never had a franchised dealer, yet can't directly sell cars in numerous states. I've directly taken part in lobbying efforts to resolve this in my own state and followed similar processes both for and against in other states. The level of nutbaggery involved in protecting the dealer rent-seekers is absurd.

Combine that entrenched level of interest on both the dealer and manufacturer lobbying sides with Musk's adamant view that advertising/lobbying/PR are wastes, and you find the company still struggling with this issue nearly a decade after beginning to truly sell vehicles at scale. I like Musk's view on that stuff in general, but would kill for the company to have even the most basic of PR operations if only for the sake of responding to crap headlines, major events, etc.

[Kasey Chang]

The entire dealership system was an archaic bureaucracy meant to "protect" the "little dealerships" from being CRUSHED by the corporate stores. That argument worked back in the earliest days of the automotive industry. It doesn't work a century later. Tesla had little problem expanding into other countries. It's in the US it met the most resistance.

I can see that sold old codgers in Congress are convinced by lobbyists "if they aren't following the rules for this, what OTHER rules may they be breaking?" kinda of logic (i.e. cockroach theory). Add to the fact that Musk likes to generate some controversy for the fun of it (the "flame thrower", the SEC incensing tweets...) and you basically got a guy and a company who really believed that they are so good they shouldn't have to play the politics game, and was slowly coming to the realization that EVERYBODY plays that game, even tech giants.

[malchior]

Musk calls out EV incentives in new tax law which is practically written for the UAW and Ford. FWIW Musk IMO is still going about this all wrong if he wants results.

[LordMortis]

I don't know right from wrong on this and I'm not a big fan of unions, generally, but Musk had no problems taking all of his federal monies when he was first to market making wild statements about affordablity. Musk, Toyota, and Honda have no problems carpet bagging and working with states to exploit tax systems to pay the least in federal dollars, working with states to do so. He's entitled to cry and Tesla Legion are entitled to get angry but I have no sympathy for them or their business models when it comes to how their employment models affects their relationships to federal government.

[LawBeefaroni]

Musk calls out EV incentives in new tax law which is practically written for the UAW and Ford. FWIW Musk IMO is still going about this all wrong if he wants results.

Cry a river. TSLA was given several years of handouts in the form of EV handouts. It kept the company alive. The incentives for Ford are to get their EV program moving. Both incentives aren't 100% fair and both achieve their goal to some degree.

This king of market manipulation is complaining about this? Of course he is.

[malchior]

This is fair. I see it as a shitty war between a market manipulator who is terrible at the government manipulation side and rent seekers hoping the government protects them. Mostly because he won't bribe like the rent-seekers. We're all caught in the middle of this bullshit and in the end it is bad policy.

We have an entirely native high-tech industry that is the leader in something approaching sustainability being bedeviled at a critical time by people who missed the bus. We should all be dismayed by how broken the policy landscape is via corruption of all sorts. It doesn't mean I have to like Musk individually but he has a point here.

[Zaxxon]

I don't know right from wrong on this and I'm not a big fan of unions, generally, but Musk had no problems taking all of his federal monies when he was first to market making wild statements about affordablity. Musk, Toyota, and Honda have no problems carpet bagging and working with states to exploit tax systems to pay the least in federal dollars, working with states to do so. He's entitled to cry and Tesla Legion are entitled to get angry but I have no sympathy for them or their business models when it comes to how their employment models affects their relationships to federal government.

Yeah, I'm sure Ford, paragon of not taking federal monies, will pay off that 2009 AVTM loan any year now.

It's not so much Tesla/Honda/Toyota here as it is 'everyone but GM and Ford.' The bill is just so clearly a handout to unions and to those two manufacturers rather than an actual attempt to raise BEV sales that it's pretty jokey. Even the 'made in US' part was reduced and given an extension while the union piece was increased, to allow Ford's Mexico-made Mach-E to get the bulk of the credit. (By my reading--which may be wrong.)

The battery size requirement is 7 kWh (seven kWh!) in the first two years, for Pete's sake. Have to make sure those PHEVs qualify.

It's just an entirely un-serious proposal if one's goal is to get off of gasoline and support American workers (a large percentage of whose vehicle workers do not work for GM or Ford).

I'm not upset about this from Tesla's perspective--this does narrow the gap that Tesla currently faces because of its success actually selling EVs from $7,500 to $4,500 (Tesla could qualify for $8k out of $12.5k max, vs $0k out of $7.5k max at present). I'm upset because it's a terrible proposal if one's goal is to goose EV demand. To be explicit given the thread we're in--it's a clear rent-seeking attempt by union lobbyists, and secondarily by Ford/GM.

Thankfully, I still view this particular proposal as having a miniscule chance of making it to law in its current state.

This video is from a Tesla perspective, but it does a good job of going over the ridiculousness of this proposal:

[Zaxxon]

This is fair. I see it as a shitty war between a market manipulator who is terrible at the government manipulation side and rent seekers hoping the government protects them. Mostly because he won't bribe like the rent-seekers. We're all caught in the middle of this bullshit and in the end it is bad policy.

We have an entirely native high-tech industry that is the leader in something approaching sustainability being bedeviled at a critical time by people who missed the bus. We should all be dismayed by how broken the policy landscape is via corruption of all sorts. It doesn't mean I have to like Musk individually but he has a point here.

Nice summation--we don't have to view Elon Musk as an awesome, totally-self-bootstrapped person to view this bill as absolute garbage.

[malchior]

Just to boil the issue down. Ford gets to set a less competitive price, pocket the profit from the government handout, its customers get a better credit, they still build the car in Mexico versus in the US, and this just because somewhere they have a person somewhere represented by a union. What's the policy connection here to the goal of more EV cars?

[LawBeefaroni]

Just to boil the issue down. Ford gets to set a less competitive price, pocket the profit from the government handout, its customers get a better credit, they still build the car in Mexico versus in the US, and this just because somewhere they have a person somewhere represented by a union. What's the policy connection here to the goal of more EV cars?

It will increase Ford EV sales. Are there shenanigans involved? Of course. But it makes the EV more attractive to consumers from a price standpoint.

TSLA has no problem finding loopholes and all their handwringing at this union subsidy is humourous.

[LordMortis]

TSLA has no problem finding loopholes and all their handwringing at this union subsidy is humourous.

And moving plants, and paying the average line workers under $20 an hour (meaning some make substantially less), and taking subsidies of their own, and using carbon credit taxes as a primary source of revenue, and having road subsidized by ICE engines and...

Again, not a fan unions or actively dislike the way our Congress takes calls from corporate lawyers in influence peddlers and Musk is gonna Musk and Tesla is gonna Tesla . Shenanigans are happening. Still, I have no empathy for the Musk or his legion, though.

We're not playing the game and the game we're not playing that gives us billions of dollars a year that we aren't playing is giving other people more and by virtue of this will take away the billions we receive. /

[Zaxxon]

LM, this is the sort of stuff that makes clear how much surface-level thinking most folks around here apply to Tesla... Your post is like a consolidated list of talking points from either incorrect or misleading media coverage rather than a considered evaluation of the state of play for traditional OEMs and those put to a disadvantage by this proposal (which, as mentioned earlier, includes Tesla but comprises a group of which Tesla is only a small part).

And moving plants

Blustering aside, no plants have been moved by Tesla. Unlike traditional OEMs.

paying the average line workers under $20 an hour (meaning some make substantially less)

Now do the calculation including stock comps. There's a reason Fremont hasn't unionized yet, and despite the headlines it's not because Tesla is evil. (Similar for other OEM plants in the US, most of which are not unionized.)

and taking subsidies of their own

As do all OEMs, most of which benefit from enormous fossil fuel subsidies that far dwarf the entirety of green subsidies. <-- It's worth noting that this line completely negates your next two points. Do not talk of a level playing field until social costs of carbon are in play.

using carbon credit taxes as a primary source of revenue

Assuming here you mean the large sums that other manufacturers choose to pay Tesla in lieu of competing in the clean vehicle space. This is exactly what the relevant regulation intended--if OEMs won't get with the program quickly enough, they help finance someone who will.

These credits are and were available equally to all manufacturers. It's not a fault of Tesla that Tesla gains an outsize benefit from them--it's the result of a decision of the OEMs that chose not to compete for them (or, rather, chose to pay rather than comply with the regulations on the product-line side).

Nor is it a 'loophole,' or 'shenanigans.' It's a fully-intended consequence of the world's need to get off of our addition to fossil fuel, combined with virtually everyone continuing to suck on that teat while shouting about how much they just don't wanna. Kudos to someone for actually trying to make it happen.

and having road subsidized by ICE engines and...

In many states, the EV surcharges dwarf the average gasoline vehicle's annual gas tax fee. It's less common for an EV to skate by these days without paying road taxes. In any event, that's not Tesla's problem, nor did they cause that issue. In point of fact, all drivers are skating by (without considering fuel type) since the gas tax hasn't nearly kept pace with inflation.

Again, not a fan unions or actively dislike the way our Congress takes calls from corporate lawyers in influence peddlers and Musk is gonna Musk and Tesla is gonna Tesla . Shenanigans are happening. Still, I have no empathy for the Musk or his legion, though.

The fact that you seem to believe that this is <OmarLittle> just part of the game </OmarLittle>, and that Tesla is benefitting as much as the traditional OEMS is... certainly one take.

We're not playing the game and the game we're not playing that gives us billions of dollars a year that we aren't playing is giving other people more and by virtue of this will take away the billions we receive.

I'm not sure that I'm properly translating from LM-speak here, but I believe here you're trying to say that Tesla is crying because this proposal's subsidy gives others more (union-based manufacturers) and 'by virtue of this will take away' billions from Tesla? I think that's your intent, but I don't get it, as Tesla's currently receiving zero in consumer-facing federal EV incentives, and hasn't for nearly two years now.

As I said earlier, this bill is far better for Tesla than no bill, as the current status quo is that Tesla has a large consumer subsidy disadvantage relative to other manufacturers, since nearly all of them still qualify for the $7,500 credit, while Tesla does not.

I know we're now in the Tesla rent-seeking thread rather than the BEV thread, but what of all the Americans with OEM manufacturing jobs at non-Tesla non-unionized plants (eg Nissan, Hyundai/Kia, Honda, Toyota, the German brands)? It's OK that their products also now have a $4,500 surcharge relative to those few who are unionized? Forget all your claimed points about Tesla-specific subsidies--these are American plants making equivalent products to GM/Ford's, but with a ~10% penalty because they're not UAW members?

Clearly the Biden admin wants to reward their union contributors with a handout with this updated credit. That's fine. The part that folks are wailing about is that the pork here is outsized relative to the stuff that they're suggesting they want to incent--clean-energy fuels and American-sourced/made vehicles.

The proposal as written not only does a bad job at its claimed goal (by pushing a large amount of its funding to a cause unrelated to the problem it's supposed to fix--EVs costing more than ICE vehicles, and pushing another significant amount to vehicles that don't fix that problem--low-capacity PHEVs), but is hiding the pork in plain sight and greatly increases the cost of the credit to taxpayers relative to a well-written proposal (that would incent BEV sales approximately evenly beyond a certain minimum vehicle capability).

If we're going to fail that badly, might as well nix this entirely and let the existing credit continue as-is. Just write the unions a big check instead, and save a ton of administrative overhead.

[LordMortis]

I don't feel like doing this point by point. I'm ignorant on stock options so I might concede that if I learn that vesting in Tesla give line works substantially more than $14 to $30 an hour.

I'm not sure that I'm properly translating from LM-speak here, but I believe here you're trying to say that Tesla is crying because this proposal's subsidy gives others more (union-based manufacturers) and 'by virtue of this will take away' billions from Tesla? I think that's your intent, but I don't get it, as Tesla's currently receiving zero in consumer-facing federal EV incentives, and hasn't for nearly two years now.

As the traditional OEMs adapt BEV ubiquity, Tesla will no longer be getting 300,000,000 per quarter in carbon credits. That is taking away billions from Tesla.

The proposal as written not only does a bad job at its claimed goal (by pushing a large amount of its funding to a cause unrelated to the problem it's supposed to fix--EVs costing more than ICE vehicles, and pushing another significant amount to vehicles that don't fix that problem--low-capacity PHEVs), but is hiding the pork in plain sight and greatly increases the cost of the credit to taxpayers relative to a well-written proposal (that would incent BEV sales approximately evenly beyond a certain minimum vehicle capability). If we're going to fail that badly, might as well nix this entirely and let the existing credit continue as-is. Just write the unions a big check instead, and save a ton of administrative overhead.

No arguments at all from me. I just have exactly zero sympathy for Musk (and those that defend him). He's literally build his entire Tesla fortune off government subsidy.

[Zaxxon]

I don't feel like doing this point by point. I'm ignorant on stock options so I might concede that if I learn that vesting in Tesla give line works substantially more than $14 to $30 an hour.

Sure does. Or has. That's likely to change at some point, and I would not be surprised if Tesla manufacturing workers eventually unionize. My point is simply that the fact that they have not, to this point, is not because Tesla's evil. I've spoken directly to multiple low-on-the-chain Tesla employees, including in Fremont, who had quite significant net worths due to this program.

As the traditional OEMs adapt BEV ubiquity, Tesla will no longer be getting 300,000,000 per quarter in carbon credits. That is taking away billions from Tesla.

True, on its face. I would counter a) that that's not at all what this discussion was about (consumer-facing EV credits); b) those credit pains from other OEMs are only getting stronger (in Europe specifically) next year--not weaker; and c) while what you say is literally true, it's likely that a number of existing 'large' OEMs will disappear by that point, and Tesla will eat a considerable portion of the market. Tesla's certainly not grumbling at all about this portion of the market at this stage of the game, which was (I think) the original contention of yours.

I just have exactly zero sympathy for Musk (and those that defend him). He's literally build his entire Tesla fortune off government subsidy.

This is what I mean by surface-level thinking. Sure, many headlines will tell you this, but it's not true if you think about the reality of what built Musk's fortune. Tesla's actual, direct subsidies from the government lie mainly in two areas:

-The AVTM loan that Tesla took out from the government back in the 2000s, paid back in full in 2013. If you're knocking them for this, then you must correspondingly knock Ford, for example, for taking a loan from the same program several times the size of Tesla's, which they are still working to pay back.

-Consumer EV credits. Available to every manufacturer equally, and applied for the purpose of achieving a public good (expanding the # of EVs on the road, accelerating the transition). You can call it a subsidy (because it is!) but the assumed negative connotation as if it were a pork-barrel deal designed to help Tesla specifically is not warranted. Further, the design of the existing credit has for the past nearly two years harmed Tesla, as their EVs now are penalized relative to nearly everyone else's. If subsidies designed to artificially goose specific manufacturers who lobbied hardest ruffles your feathers, get ready to get super-upset when you read about the proposal we're discussing here!

It's another angle of the assumption that Tesla raking in so much from other manufacturers due to clean-vehicle credits is a bad thing. It's unequivocally a good thing for the world. These regulations (subsidies, if you will, though the money is coming from the other manufacturers, not the government) are achieving their goal of working to force the overall market's hand. Albeit not in their #1 most-desired way, which would have been for the OEMs to convert their own fleets more quickly rather than building factories for Tesla. Either route eventually achieves the goal, though.

[LordMortis]

...

-The AVTM loan that Tesla took out from the government back in the 2000s, paid back in full in 2013. If you're knocking them for this, then you must correspondingly knock Ford, for example, for taking a loan from the same program several times the size of Tesla's, which they are still working to pay back.

...

-Consumer EV credits.

....

It's another angle of the assumption that Tesla raking in so much from other manufacturers due to clean-vehicle credits

...

I'm not knocking Tesla for any of it. That's the game the were winning handily. I'm giving them no sympathy for subsidies they aren't getting.

Also "my angle" had always been that Tesla's road to profitability was rooted in carbon credits. (Which is a federal subsidy aka a redistribution) Once I saw those numbers, it was literally the reason I bought stock in them. They were eye popping. At the time, it was nearly 900,000,000 per quarter from FCA alone.

[Zaxxon]

[stessier]

Yeah, I'm sure Ford, paragon of not taking federal monies, will pay off that 2009 AVTM loan any year now.

Well said - it will be paid off in 2022 exactly as the terms of the loan required.

[Zaxxon]

Yeah, I'm sure Ford, paragon of not taking federal monies, will pay off that 2009 AVTM loan any year now.

Well said - it will be paid off in 2022 exactly as the terms of the loan required.

Snark aside, that's great!

[LawBeefaroni]

As do all OEMs, most of which benefit from enormous fossil fuel subsidies that far dwarf the entirety of green subsidies. <-- It's worth noting that this line completely negates your next two points. Do not talk of a level playing field until social costs of carbon are in play.

Do we know how much of Tesla end user run time is fossil fuel based (coal) vs "green"? Is it safe to assume it's roughly the same ratio as the electric grid in a given area?

These credits are and were available equally to all manufacturers. It's not a fault of Tesla that Tesla gains an outsize benefit from them--it's the result of a decision of the OEMs that chose not to compete for them (or, rather, chose to pay rather than comply with the regulations on the product-line side).

They're a creation of investment banks and of highly questionable value in reducing emissions. They allow bad actors to "pay to pollute" rather than actually reducing emissions. Tesla is basically ensuring anything "green" they do is offset by someone dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Buy hey, if it funds 100% of FCF...

[LordMortis]

Do we know how much of Tesla end user run time is fossil fuel based (coal) vs "green"? Is it safe to assume it's roughly the same ratio as the electric grid in a given area?

That would be an interesting study but I am going to guess most Tesla drivers have solar homes and most of their charging is done from home. OtOH, I'm also guessing that most charging is done at night and most solar home users don't have their own home battery storage but rather send their excess power to the grid during the day and then collect it at night either for free or at seriously reduced price. How that washes out in coal burning, I can't even imagine what you'd have to go through to estimate.

[LawBeefaroni]

I'd be surprised if it were more than 25% on solar, via home solar anyway. But I'd count grid solar, wind, hydro, and nuke.

[Zaxxon]

As do all OEMs, most of which benefit from enormous fossil fuel subsidies that far dwarf the entirety of green subsidies. <-- It's worth noting that this line completely negates your next two points. Do not talk of a level playing field until social costs of carbon are in play.

Do we know how much of Tesla end user run time is fossil fuel based (coal) vs "green"? Is it safe to assume it's roughly the same ratio as the electric grid in a given area?

On the whole, no. A higher-than-average percentage of EV drivers have home solar PV relative to the population at large. That said, it's likely in the ballpark of the local grid, adjusted by some small percentage to the 'greener' column. Not relevant to where I think you're going, though, as regardless of power source, driving an EV is a significant step forward relative to combustion vehicles, both in overall carbon footprint and local emissions impact.

These credits are and were available equally to all manufacturers. It's not a fault of Tesla that Tesla gains an outsize benefit from them--it's the result of a decision of the OEMs that chose not to compete for them (or, rather, chose to pay rather than comply with the regulations on the product-line side).

They're a creation of investment banks and of highly questionable value in reducing emissions. They allow bad actors to "pay to pollute" rather than actually reducing emissions. Tesla is basically ensuring anything "green" they do is offset by someone dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Buy hey, if it funds 100% of FCF...

Again with surface-level discussion. While I agree that traditional OEMs are largely bad actors, and that they are effectively paying to pollute, the end-game effect of the credits has been to allow Tesla to expand more rapidly than they otherwise would have. Thereby increasing the rate of EV adoption. Unless your argument is that absent these credits, someone else would have produced all of the EVs that Tesla did, and would be prepping for millions more in the next 2 years? If you honestly think that these credit schemes haven't had an impact on accelerating the swap to EVs, I'm not sure what to say to you.

Do we know how much of Tesla end user run time is fossil fuel based (coal) vs "green"? Is it safe to assume it's roughly the same ratio as the electric grid in a given area?

That would be an interesting study but I am going to guess most Tesla drivers have solar homes and most of their charging is done from home. OtOH, I'm also guessing that most charging is done at night and most solar home users don't have their own home battery storage but rather send their excess power to the grid during the day and then collect it at night either for free or at seriously reduced price. How that washes out in coal burning, I can't even imagine what you'd have to go through to estimate.

The answer to how it washes out is that it does burn more coal (in some cases), but it tends to be baseload coal that would have been burned either way, wasting some portion of that energy. This is one reason that power companies tend to incentivize time-of-use rates that encourage overnight charging--it tends to be both lower in $$ cost to the utility (less peaker usage) and lower-emissions (greater baseload utilization, greater ability to predict baseload usage).

Several utilities, including mine, are now offering further incentives to integrate directly with the vehicle or charging equipment, allowing them to have a say on when specifically the vehicles charge. Rather than a large time-of-use window, they can control down to the minute when an EV will start and stop charging. On our program, this works by letting me set a desired charge % and a time by which I want the car charged, and then Xcel takes over and decides whether than means kicking off at 7 PM, midnight, 2 am, etc.

[LordMortis]

Really? I'd think that home solar and BEV would be like peanut butter and jelly. It's a home ownership play with a large initial outlay that pays back and gives you a certain status. I'd think the ven diagram would have a large and growing overlap.

Edit that was to Lawbeef.

[LawBeefaroni]

These credits are and were available equally to all manufacturers. It's not a fault of Tesla that Tesla gains an outsize benefit from them--it's the result of a decision of the OEMs that chose not to compete for them (or, rather, chose to pay rather than comply with the regulations on the product-line side).

They're a creation of investment banks and of highly questionable value in reducing emissions. They allow bad actors to "pay to pollute" rather than actually reducing emissions. Tesla is basically ensuring anything "green" they do is offset by someone dumping carbon into the atmosphere. Buy hey, if it funds 100% of FCF...

Again with surface-level discussion. While I agree that traditional OEMs are largely bad actors, and that they are effectively paying to pollute, the end-game effect of the credits has been to allow Tesla to expand more rapidly than they otherwise would have. Thereby increasing the rate of EV adoption. Unless your argument is that absent these credits, someone else would have produced all of the EVs that Tesla did, and would be prepping for millions more in the next 2 years? If you honestly think that these credit schemes haven't had an impact on accelerating the swap to EVs, I'm not sure what to say to you.

Actually, my argument would be that its a financial tool, not an environmental one. Again, it's the great market manipulator at work. Which is fine but don't turn around and cry about subsidies to unions. They took a scheme created by Goldman to print money and printed money.

[Kasey Chang]

Tesla may have just did an end-run on the dealership laws by placing a sales, service, and delivery center on tribal land of Nambe Pueblo, just north of Santa Fe, NM. (with permission, of course)

Tribal land is technically a separate sovereign nation and not subject to state law.

[Zaxxon]

Actually, my argument would be that its a financial tool, not an environmental one. Again, it's the great market manipulator at work. Which is fine but don't turn around and cry about subsidies to unions. They took a scheme created by Goldman to print money and printed money.

Who is 'they?'

I would say that it's a financial tool used for environmental goals, imperfectly. And I still think the tie-in to the current proposal is a bad one. Every manufacturer could have taken advantage of this 'financial tool.' Suggesting that it's a problem with the tool that only Tesla actually competently utilized it is fair (in that this would suggest that the tool wasn't entirely effective), but the shade that gets tossed at Tesla for this is unwarranted, IMO. It's not analogous to a consumer credit that applies only to union workers, IMO.

Similar to how stessier missed the point of the Ford AVTM loan earlier--of course they're paying it back on time. I didn't suggest otherwise. Simply that it's not the case that Tesla is a subsidy baby--all the playas play the game. You just hear about it a lot more with Tesla, even though it's an everyone doing whatever they can to get all the subsidies they can situation, and Tesla's absolute subsidy numbers pale relative to some others.

[coopasonic]

Really? I'd think that home solar and BEV would be like peanut butter and jelly. It's a home ownership play with a large initial outlay that pays back and gives you a certain status. I'd think the ven diagram would have a large and growing overlap.

Edit that was to Lawbeef.

A Tesla is a small-ish upsell for anyone that was buying a mid to higher end car. Whole home solar is a HUGE outlay with widely varying payback schedules.

Once the kids are gone and we move to our empty nest home, I would consider prioritizing solar. If someone like me who could afford it if he wanted is saying not yet, then I could see it not being as common as you are imagining. Also, I assume Zaxxon did his homework.

[Kasey Chang]

That would be an interesting study but I am going to guess most Tesla drivers have solar homes and most of their charging is done from home. OtOH, I'm also guessing that most charging is done at night and most solar home users don't have their own home battery storage but rather send their excess power to the grid during the day and then collect it at night either for free or at seriously reduced price. How that washes out in coal burning, I can't even imagine what you'd have to go through to estimate.

I wouldn't make that bet, given that Tesla also sells the Tesla Powerwall, with their own solar solution.

[malchior]

Whole home solar is a HUGE outlay with widely varying payback schedules.

It is expensive. I was just quoted a 17.7KwH system at ~$40K. It'd net a 12K federal tax credit bringing it down to 28K. Net payback is estimated at 6 years with a warranty lifetime of 25 years. It's in no brainer territory if the financing is possible. NJ helps here though. No property tax assessment on the solar system, there is no sales tax for the work, and a robust SREC program incentivizes it. In the grand scheme of things that isn't even too big an investment. Buying a Tesla is usually much more expensive.

[LawBeefaroni]

Actually, my argument would be that its a financial tool, not an environmental one. Again, it's the great market manipulator at work. Which is fine but don't turn around and cry about subsidies to unions. They took a scheme created by Goldman to print money and printed money.

Who is 'they?'

Tesla.

I would say that it's a financial tool used for environmental goals, imperfectly. And I still think the tie-in to the current proposal is a bad one. Every manufacturer could have taken advantage of this 'financial tool.' Suggesting that it's a problem with the tool that only Tesla actually competently utilized it is fair (in that this would suggest that the tool wasn't entirely effective), but the shade that gets tossed at Tesla for this is unwarranted, IMO. It's not analogous to a consumer credit that applies only to union workers, IMO.

It's not analogous as a program but as "boo hoo, they get all the breaks and we don't...". Tesla has gotten plenty of breaks and government support.