It looks like the state of California is bailing out Tesla
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
>In California, the largest EV market in the US, 2.7% of new vehicles sold in the first quarter were EVs, up from 0.4% in 2012, according to the California New Dealers Association. California is Tesla’s largest market. Something big needs to be done to help the Bay Area company, which has lost money every single year of its ten years of existence.
> And for instance, a $100,000 Tesla might be deemed to have the same features as a $65,000 gas-powered car. The rebate would cover the difference, minus the federal rebate (so $27,500). Because rebates for Teslas will soon be gone, the program would cover the entire difference – $35,000. This is where Senator Vidak got his “$30,000 to $40,000.”
Seems Californians will be footing a significant chunk of all Tesla sales once the standard Federal $7,500 rebate expires on Tesla vehicles.
This does seem to largely be targeting Tesla's since, according to the article, are the only US EV maker nearing the 200,000 vehicle sales limit for Federal subsidies.
Am I wrong in assuming it is every other automakers's largest market? It is the most populated state, right?
Chevy is a brand... GM is the company iirc. Even if Chevy sells more in Texas it doesn't mean GM is sold more in Texas than California.
http://austinenergy.com/wps/wcm/connect/2ec866e7-4556-407b-b...
10Kwh for $30 vs >$100 if you were to just add it to your electric bill.
Frequently now, I've considered getting an electric car on lease, and then buying a big inverter and running my house off the car parked in the garage... If it weren't for the price of the car it would be an excellent way to save a couple hundred dollars a month in electric service.
So, beyond that, I'm sort of irritated by tax subsidies, because they are really no different than paying someone cash because someone else has to makeup the shortfall, be it through worse education systems, or simply paying more taxes. (I'm also in the camp that believes toll roads are just a convenient way to raise taxes while simultaneously claiming to cut them).
But back to electricity generation, electric cars are _NOT_ an insignificant load, and further subsidizing them to the tun of tens of thousands of dollars in electric charges (assuming a ten year lifespan for the car) on the backs of the common ratepayers, is about as regressive a tax as is possible. The same is true of the loss in gas taxes. People who can afford $100k teslas (teslas are well over 50% of the electric car market in the US given rough estimates, the leaf being the other significant player with ~30k cars a year) don't need further subsidies on the backs of people who on average are earning less than $50k a year.
So, yes the discounted rates are the final tipping point, $7.5k a year in tax incentives + 1-3x that much again over the life of the car paid for generally by those that can least afford is is the worse kind of policy.
Electric cars are also extremely useful in that you can choose to charge them at times when wind and solar are producing "too much" power.
Which sounds great, but is 100% BS in most cases. That Austin energy EV charging system I linked doesn't turn off the charger when the wind isn't blowing. Instead its strictly time based, so while much of the information is public (http://www.ercot.com/mktinfo) it is pretty much impossible to say "There is spare wind capacity feeding my house, lets charge the car". I would be interested if anyone actually has such a system, and further what would such a system do when there isn't sufficient wind overcapacity for days? Then oddly enough, I see a bunch of tesla's charging on the chargers at work, which of course is during peak power usage times (aka when all the NG peak plants are running).
No, you want to start solving this problem by attacking it directly. The problem is too much CO2 emissions, so start taxing CO2 emissions from _ALL_ sources, don't try to pick winners (electric cars) and subsidize them, when the next big breakthrough might be a petrol engine that can catalyze out the carbon, or hydrogen fuel cells. Neither of those choices seems likely, but hey... Much like I think the "environmentalists" are as much at fault for climate change by fear mongering nukes in order to wish for renewable sources for the past 40 years as the deniers, I think the electric car people with their "zero emissions" bumper stickers are preaching a lie.
Despite being one of the greenest cities per capita in the country, Los Angeles has the worst air pollution due to its topography. The air here literally shortens your lifespan by years.
I think it also makes more sense from a moral standpoint. If using a gasoline powered car contributes more to the environment's woes, paying the tax is giving back to society in return for having made it a slightly worse place via pollution. It is also better to directly tax the undesirable car that way the tax is directly associated with the undesirable car, as opposed to a general income tax. This may be less politically feasible for that reason though.
California's budget is running a surplus
http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/budget/2017-18MR/#/Home
Unemployment rate is 4.9%
http://www.labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/countyur-...
Job growth in California is ranked #10 in US
http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/business/T019-S010-states...
California's economy 'growing a hell of a lot faster' than Texas
http://www.politifact.com/california/statements/2016/dec/19/...
are we sure Tesla's are better for the env? Don't get me wrong, I want an alternative to gas. But let's make fair comparisons.
This is like claiming parks in big cities are good for the environment. Well they are. For about 2 blocks or so. And especially good for the house values around there. Which is of course the real reason they're built.
You're acting as if the purpose of environmental policy is to rescue the planet, and there's your mistake. Giving free money to rich people with lots of influence is the only factor in those decisions.
If you check, you'll find that all of Elon Musk's companies after paypal share this characteristic. They are barely working at all, and there's no way in hell they'd work without this free money. So really, this is about transfering your taxes to Elon Musk's company so mostly him, and of course quite a few rich people can get free money and tell a story to themselves about the environment.
This is exactly the quality of work I expect in a 1-party state.
Another consideration: if it was GM or Ford that was up against that 200k limit, you think their lobbyists couldn't wrangle a similar deal?