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Comment by awa | Hacker News Reader

This is thanks to the absurd guidance by the govt. to only give tax break Model Y like vehicles if they are under $55K. (Personally,this hurts as I bought a MY in December)

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I don't really think the government needs to be subsidizing cars for the wealthy. Or encouraging bad purchasing decisions for the less than wealthy.

There is an argument for it: the best technologies start out expensive and even kind of crappy and only reach the people who really want (or need, in B2B) it. Then the important features get shaken out, and as mfg comes down the learning curve the production cost drops and the price does too (to build share).

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 But they should have been withdrawn long ago.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.

Millionaires do not need tax money to save thousands on their 2nd or 3rd car, regardless of how nascent the technology.

You're misunderstanding the purpose of the policy. It's not to help out car purchasers, but to shift consumption towards EVs.

As somebody who cares a lot about the damage that ICEs do, locally and globally, it's enormously frustrating how many people care more about obsessive hatred towards the rich than they care about the planet burning.

I think there was an early argument for subsidizing expensive EVs assuming that was the only way to advance them. But no longer is that the case.

The purpose of the subsidy is to reduce carbon emissions, yes? By developing fossil-fuel free industries. Does it matter who the cars go to?

Sure, if they go into someone's garage as part of a collection, that's carbon positive (due to all the emissions to manufacture it and the lack of savings as it sits in a garage). Emissions are only potentially saved if it's frequently used and offsets an ICE vehicle that would have been used otherwise.

Yeah obviously. But is there any reason to think that is happening with brand new EVs? In such a way that would matter for this tax credit. No.

Sometimes I feel like people really overestimate the number of "rich people" and also attribute cartoonish behavior to them.

I highly doubt the average Tesla owner (or luxury EV car, for that matter) is 1) so rich they buy it as a "collectible" and/or 2) don't drive it enough to justify subsidy

That wasn't really the question though was it? The question was, is there a reason why rich people might be less desirable subsidy targets than other people. I have known several wealthy people with car collections, not like Jay Leno style collections but collections nonetheless.

How many Tesla owners are rich enough to afford it just sitting in their garage?

OK, sure, but it’s sort of derailing the discussion by focusing on this absurd hypothetical that we have no reason to think is true. The context is a $7500 tax cut with an income cap. Does it seem likely that removing that cap would cause a meaningful number rich people to sequester their EVs. Also, even if they did, it still helps build out the infrastructure for EV manufacturing.

You asked a question and I responded to it. If you didn't like the direction that took the conversation, I understand that, I don't think the conversation went in a good direction either. But I don't think it's fair to put the responsibility for that all on me, if you wanted to take the conversation in a certain direction, you could've either declined to respond to my comment, or indicated in your response what it was you wanted to discuss.

As it was, you engaged with the premise in a dismissive way, and then it became a conversation about dismissing the premise. You had these criticisms about how it still builds EV capacity and such, but you didn't express those, you just said, "no."

It takes two to tango.

I didn't hide my criticism – the main issue with your answer was that there is no reason to think what you mentioned was a real or relevant problem! My first reply was to say this. I responded to your claim and explained why it didn't seem like a good answer.

I apologize if I was unclear, I didn't mean to say you hid your criticism, but that if you wanted to expand the conversation instead of contract it to a topic you found unsuitable, you could've expressed yourself differently, eg, by saying, "I don't see a reason to believe that, but even if that were true, wouldn't it still build capacity?"

You're free to express whatever however, but you expressed dissatisfaction with how the conversation went, so I was just offering my perspective on how that came to pass.

The subsidy's goal is not to make the recipient's life better, but to shift consumption decisions from ICEs to EVs. The theory is that ICE/EV cost comparison is skewed by the substantial extra negative externalities of the former.

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

Don't they already do this with the mortgage interest tax deduction? or the Earned Income Credit for having children? etc

Obviously you arent from UK gov, they gave out 100% allowance on company owned EVs https://www.gov.uk/capital-allowances/business-cars plenty of taycans and etrons financed that way.

Also happening in Italy, so I guess it's not only about US gov.

https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/tesla-abbatte-listini-model-...

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