Tesla drops prices up to 20 percent in attempt to drive sales

You don't think Elon tweeting: "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci" doesn't reveal something about his personality or his values?

However, I don't feel the stereotype is completely fair. Plenty of people buy Teslas because they are committed to zero emissions, and Teslas have better range and a great charging network. (and avoiding dealerships is a nice advantage as well)

https://energyx.com/blog/will-we-run-out-of-lithium/

AFAIK, there are absolutely no rare earth minerals in lithium batteries used in vehicles. Perhaps I'm wrong?

For the reference, here are all of the rare earth metals:

  Lanthanum: symbol Ln, atomic number 57
  Cerium: symbol Ce, atomic number 58
  Praseodymium: symbol Pr, atomic number 59
  Neodymium: symbol Nd, atomic number 60
  Promethium: symbol Pm, atomic number 61
  Samarium: symbol Sm, atomic number 62
  Europium: symbol Eu, atomic number 63
  Gadolinium: symbol Gd, atomic number 64
  Terbium: symbol Tb, atomic number 65
  Dysprosium: symbol Dy, atomic number 66
  Holmium: symbol Ho, atomic number 67
  Erbium: symbol Er, atomic number 68
  Thulium: symbol Tm, atomic number 69
  Ytterbium: symbol Yb, atomic number 70
  Lutetium: symbol Lu, atomic number 71

So if you can increase the number of people who participate in the early stage the technology will come down the learning curve faster, which is good for everyone (except the legacy producers, in the case of a replacement technology). In other words society can get a lot of leverage from the subsidy.

Of course that's the best case, and there are opportunities for regulatory capture etc.

I bought my first electric car around 2000 or 1999. No subsidies back then and the product was crappy. Tesla started selling subsidized cars that were adequate to enthusiasts, what, a decade later. The environment was different: not just the subsidies but technological infrastructure. You had to put up with the limitations of Tesla, but it was a viable product.

Now there are many more manufacturers of electric cars, mostly better than T. So T has to scramble (if they can, which I doubt, but whatever). So this case is a net positive, IMHO.

The fossil fuel industry propered due to extensive subsidies, and that was also a very good thing (among other things it cleaned up cities and saved the whales). But they should have been withdrawn long ago. That is an extreme example of regulatory capture.

This has nothing to do with how much is in the purchaser's wallet, and shifts consumption back to ICEs on the margin.