Tesla excluded from EV buyer credits in California proposal | Hacker News Reader

Tesla excluded from EV buyer credits in California proposal

fortune.com

61 pointsMiguelX41399 comments

Twice recently I've traveled by air to visit an ill family member in CA. Both times I've reserved a hybrid, but given a "free upgrade" to an EV because the hybrids were gone. I stayed with family who don't have any charging infrastructure at home. The two DCFCs in town were constantly busy any time of day I tried them. My only saving grace was that the rental facility was apparently aware of this sort of problem, and preemptively told me to not worry about bringing it back charged.

I love my EV that I daily drive back home, but if I, someone who already has the apps and knows how things work, have a problem with it, it's gonna really suck for those who don't. CA should really consider improving local charging infrastructure before sponsoring more EVs on the road.

Most people miss, that you do not need a full and fast charging infrastructure at home. I rarely need to fill the car from empty. I rarely need to jump on the next multi hour trip right away.

If you "stay with family" I assume this is a few hours or overnight. Even slow charging from a regular outlet gives enough over night or a 6 hour stay. In Europe a regular outlet can give 3-4kW, so 6 hours is enough to go another 100km.

At work they installed a lot of 11kW chargers. Sure - some might need them, but most people would be fine with topping up their cars every day on a single phase charger. You park there for 6-8 hours, even at 3-4kW that would be enough for a daily 200km commute (which is rare, that guy can go to the 11kW charger).

I stayed in rural Italy with really old crappy electricity. Even there I could hookup the car on single phase at 1kW and keep charging. Two days later it was full again.

Most people miss that most people in the world live in the apartments and not in the private houses. I wouldn't be able to charge EV at home even via 1A usb cable, simply because there is no wiring whatsoever on the parking.

This is crazy to me.

So you have an increased concentration of people and parking, and so there is NO WAY to more efficiently make charging infra for that?

The only way we can do home charging is in geographically semi-sparse suburbia?

Come on. Apartment buildings should be STRONGLY incented by local governments to provide charging infrastructure, even if it is simply regular power outlets not even L2, to apartments.

Urban cities have air quality problems. PHEVs/EVs solve a huge part of air quality. SUBSIDIZE the charging infrastructure. I'm sure the power company will LOVE to take some grants.

I fully agree. But the actual EU reality (Poland) is that right now, this year, if you will go to the new modern (and really expensive relatively) apartment development and ask about EV parking spots, they will either tell you that nothing is wired, or that there are 1 or 2 spots per whole parking where you can later pay to install charger, which may or may not be already sold. And these spots are more expensive that other regular ones.

giving money to build shit always works out. I think $6 trillion might be roughly enough for couple of buildings :)

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/05/congress-ev-charger...

I used an L1 charger at home when I first bought my car; I'm familiar with the process and speed. But I didn't have the foresight to carry the L1 cord with me in my carry-on luggage, nor did I want to buy one to leave behind, so I was missing that very critical component. Rentals do not include any cables, so I had no way to go from a 5-15 outlet to a J1772 or NACS vehicle.

Wow - that rental situation sounds painful. Almost like malicious compliance to discourage EV usage.

Around 2019 I rented an EV from a retired enthusiast, and this included all bells and whistles, charging cards and cables. Pricey back then, but great experience. This is how you convince people

> I assume this is a few hours or overnight. Even slow charging from a regular outlet gives enough over night or a 6 hour stay.

Not even close. We don't have a fast charger at home, so just charging from regular outlet. We charge from midnight to 3pm, or 15 hours a day (these are the cheaper hours with PG&E, although still a ripoff).

That's not enough to charge fully in a day. Fortunately my partner only goes to work every other day, so it's ok. If we needed the car every day, it wouldn't work.

I wish AZ was as good at this as CA. I rented a tesla from avis in AZ and it was a train wreck. At rental they were pretty threatening about they didn't have a place to charge so it'd be huge fees if I didn't bring it back charged, and they also didn't include the adapter that they said to charge at non-tesla charging stations. It's was both super stressful and a total pain to find a supercharge for this nearby. It's almost as is Avis is trying to go out of their way to making EV's seem horrible for customers.

I had the same sorts of issues the first time I rented a model 3 from hertz (when they had them).

For example, I didn't know how to lock the car. When I hit lock on the center console, then got out, it would unlock it. Finally had to google to figure out the two ways to lock the car. one was opening the door first, hitting lock, and then closing the door - it stayed locked. The other was to put the card key on the middle pillar.

Same issues charging. Called in and it turned out the j1772 adapter was in the trunk with the charging kit

after that it went smoother.

All the hotels I stayed at had charging.

Using tesla superchargers is great - always working, always plenty of stalls.

And the tesla would drive itself on the freeway - other cars wouldn't. Best.

You don't need to actively lock a Tesla, just walk away. It will lock itself as soon as it realizes you're no longer next to it.

Yes, this took some getting used to (what if it doesn't realize I'm gone?), but in several years of Tesla ownership it has failed to lock precisely zero times. And now I regularly forget to lock non-Tesla rentals.

I don't see how America will smoothly transition to EVs. It feels like we'll live in an ICE/EV dichotomy for a long time. EVs work great for a lot of people, but not everyone with an ICE vehicle wants an EV. Given the current status quo, some of them will never want an EV.

A significant number of homes only have street parking available, thus no place to plug in. Not having access to home charging makes EV ownership a burden.

A lot of people live in massive multi-family dwellings, where charging infra is difficult or impossible to provide for all residents. If every resident switches to an EV, that's either a lot of load or everyone is left fighting over a limited number of charging stations.

Up north, EV range drops 30-50% during the winter. Maybe that's not a problem if you don't drive much, but most EVs already have shorter ranges than gas.

It seems incredibly impractical to have to schedule your life around EV shortcomings.

I used to think the same thing. When EVs first became popular, finding public fast charging was a joke. I remember there was evgo, blink and chargepoint. Chargepoint was basically l2 only. blink was l2 and l3, but they were ALWAYS out of order. And evgo was reliable L3 + L2, but they were expensive and would have max 2 stalls of L3.

Then I tried tesla, who really planned for the long term. Many charging locations. Many charging stalls. All of them extremely high power. Their cars had much better range than the competition (at the time). All of that made charging a tesla predictable and dependable. (In stark contrast to the rest)

Fundamentally the issue is one of battery tech. If you can build some kind of magical super-battery that can charge quickly and has 900 miles of rage, as Toyota claims to be doing, then all of those issues magically disappear.

That said, the BEST solution to commuting is being able to walk to your workplace, but unfortunately with America's terrible zoning policies everything will likely remain super far apart and unusable without a car forevermore.

Economics teaches us that the cost of something is often its opportunity cost.

The opportunity cost of a world that refuses to stop emitting greenhouse gases because its "impractical to schedule your life around it" gets to pay the costs of climate disaster, food shortages and such. That cost is much higher, but in the future so (perhaps irrationally) time-discounted to appear lower currently.

Surely the original credits model was based on volume? Ie, tesla are excluded from this because they've blown past the first 100,000 units sold. The point was to encourage diverse suppliers of models into the market.

If this has the same goal (encourage new entrants, diverse sources) then what do you suggest they do?

The 200,000 unit cap was part of federal legislation, not state legislation. That was repealed as part of the Inflation Reduction Act under the Biden administration, and replaced with a new system where you qualify for the credit based on the sourcing of your battery materials and other factors.

Here, Newsom is proposing an entirely new incentive that he has designed specifically to exclude Tesla.

The IRA was able to extend the subsidies for Tesla because it had the considerable resources of the Fedetal government behind it. A state is going to have fewer resources, and so it makes sense to go back to the original and less-generous regime. More practically, Tesla has already received a lot of subsidies and now has large sales and economies of scale, so it’s not very practical for California to allocate limited resources to Tesla rather than companies that haven’t yet reached scalable production.

Of course the very best thing here would be for the Federal government to maintain the subsidies of the IRA, and then California wouldn’t have to step in with its more limited capabilities in the first place. If that’s important to Tesla, I’m sure they have someone who can talk to the incoming administration about it.

It makes no sense to subsidize only the players who have low market share. Tesla is the only carmaker that still makes cars in California, why subsidize foreign cars at the expense of California workers… using their own tax dollars?

The only justification for such harmful economic policy is political retaliation against Musk. But it is not the role of the government to use taxpayer funds for political retribution against opponents.

Why? It fosters competition and considering Tesla was heavily subsidized during its early years, it makes sense its competitors should have similar shots

Subsidies should not be used to decide winners and losers. There should be an equal playing field for all companies. When the government starts deciding winners instead of the market, things start falling apart fast.

It makes sense for the same reason that Musk reportedly endorsing Trump's plan to kill federal EV subsidies makes sense.

Tesla is profitable enough that Musk believes that Tesla will do fine without subsidies. Not so for most other EV makers--they are still at the stage where they are figuring it out and not yet reaping economies of scale. Musk believes that removal of subsidies will greatly hurt them.

If a state wants to encourage a healthy multi-company competitive EV market it makes sense to design the state subsidy program so that the benefits go toward making that happen which in the case of the current EV market means not subsidizing any company whose EV market share is about the same as that of everyone else combined.

I'm not sure why you're bring downvoted, since Musk is on the record saying exactly this.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tesla-elon-musk-supports...

Whether he actually believes this or is just claiming to believe this to placate Trump is another question.

Let me underline this.

Tesla was once a company that was a shining star of environmental hope. The legacy of Tesla providing economic paths to viable EVs shielded the company from the, uh, controversy of its CEO, which my comment history has a history of somewhat reluctant defense.

Tesla is no longer that company. It is a barrier and a hinderance to EV adoption. Tesla is a luxury car company that is only interested in establishing economic moats to its relative monopoly of EVs in America.

- They no longer have any drivetrain or battery technological advantage in the marketplace. They possibly have a minor economic advantage in packaging/integration than US competitors, but while I would once say they had a two year lead on US competitors, they have less than a year now I would roughly guess.

- They DESPERATELY want to keep Chinese EVs out of the marketplace, who have superior economics, possibly superior or at least equal drivetrain/system integration ability, and likely better and more flexible battery pack architectures especially for all the chemistry types (NMC, LFP, Sodium Ion). Thus they want tariffs.

- Tesla has no plan for a mass market city car and other mixed mode electric transportation like motorcycles and mopeds. This is the car of the EV revolution, powered by the revolutionary economics of the sodium ion battery, which should cost 1/3 or less of NMC once it scales. The city car, which I'm actually envisioning as a 10-15k car with 200 miles or range, would help push out USED ice vehicles from the system, not just take a share of new ICE car sales.

- Kind of related to the city car, the EV revolution requires the realization of the cheaper-than-ICE car. Tesla is possibly able to do this, but shows no inclination to deliver this. China or a US-China car company partnership is probably what will deliver this. Tesla is only interested in resisting this prospect.

- IMO Tesla could have pushed its brand and battery economics to lots of two-stroke engine tools and taken the electric lawnmower / leafblower / etc from the "luxury green virtue signalling" category like eGo brands, to a "beats ICE tools".

- Tesla is opposing subsidies, which from a mass market replace-ICE standpoint are absolutely still needed, especially since the total-ownership factor of EVs is now superior in the general sense. But buyers need the immediate price superiority to seal sells.

- Tesla's supercharging network is one of its moats already, and it has done some nods to opening it, but generally Tesla's expansion of the supercharger network hasn't really exploded beyond the needs of what it thinks its own EVs need. Arguably it has disrupted or resisted universal plug interfaces and other standards in favor of its standard.

You can say Tesla isn't obligated to live up to any of this, but their double-mouthed CEO has spouted ideals for a decade, and to some degree they delivered in previous years, but it is clear to me that in recent years they are no longer in the "do no evil".

Outsider perspective:

- EVERYONE wants to keep chinese EVs out of their marketplaces, EU included. It's gov on gov subsidies fighting and you either accept your own markets being crushed by loss-leaders or you don't. The fact that people see this as a red v blue stuff is mind boggling.

- you play politics with your companies, you pay the price. This current admin had an EV summit and didn't invite the top dog? I mean, politics is supposed to be that thing where you swallow your pride and meet with people you don't like. They couldn't do that. What do they expect now?

In general the retconning and my team vs their team you do in the US right now is really on a different level. You have traditional eco camps shitting on ev companies, traditional anti-reds military hawks wanting to stay out of literally rendering the traditional enemies useless, you have that middle east stuff where camps are literally 180 of what they were 10 years ago. This world is going whack, and I can't believe people on the Internet don't see it, and still try to find ways to argue for "their team".

Luckily the people I meet IRL aren't as hyper radicalised as the online folks are. In both red and blue states, the people are ok. Reading stuff online you'd think there's a literal war going on. Hopefully this will pass in a few years...

Generally what the article discusses, and yeah my comment meandered a fair amount, is that should Tesla be specifically excluded from subsidies?

The EU has plausible progress from its mainline car makers in EV scaling. It can shield an entire industry with tariffs or targeted subsidies. The US is basically Tesla, some early stage startups, and the US companies only doing it because their activist shareholders would fire the US leadership of GM or Ford if they weren't being active.

The US is one company, and per my argument that company is no longer helping the overall health of the EV market. Honestly I think Chinese EVs would be a welcome kickstart to adoption in the US. At a minimum it would probably drive a vast amount of domestic manufacturing for onshore/nearshore chinese car factories, a sort of reverse-transfer of manufacturing technology/practice back to the US from China (from companies that are probably desperate to diversify their global footprint with the dire demographic and authoritarian future of China that is apparent).

If Musk wants to temper tantrum over that little meeting, then he is again not being a CEO. Again, HALF OF THEIR CUSTOMERS ARE DEMOCRATS. So not the middle third/half of Americans, not the quarter-right. You cannot alienate half of your customer base, and Tesla is going to find out what happens if a CEO plays politics.

Tesla is a company of passionate progressive thinking people that were willing to jump on board a radically new car company. Politics will be important to these buyers, because it is part and parcel of the brand identity.

This is marketing 101. Brands == Emotions == Identity == Investment. Musk has shattered the emotional and identity link of a huge amount of current and probably most future customers. For many, it won't just be weakened with some dose of comparmentalization/cognitive dissonance. For a large number, and probably some of the most passionate defenders (like me), it is poisoned.

So the CEO should have swallowed politics and played to his customer base. That is what CEOs and business is about. But that's not what happened.

Almost all Tesla owners I know were proponents and advocates for a decade. Since the election, they are now, at best, rationalizers. Many others regret the purchase and now will just ride out the current car/lease and "Never Tesla" again.

He made the cybertruck instead of the model 2. I just don’t understand that decision.

Model 3 is priced under the average US car price. It is a mass market car.

Yes Chinese EVs have superior economics. It's quite difficult to have both high labor rates "living wages!" and cheap cars. Tesla is still the most competitive in this regard vs. other US automakers.

Tesla just announced their mass market robocar. Do you believe they won't actually produce it?

Makes sense to oppose subsidies, Tesla's stance has always been if you remove the subsidies for gas cars then EVs will already be highly competitive just on merit alone.

Tesla has already fully opened the supercharging network including the plug interface. What other company would do that? Imagine if Comcast were forced to share all their cable lines.

"Tesla just announced their mass market robocar. Do you believe they won't actually produce it?"

- Tesla generally is 1-3 years late on actual production of vehicles

- previous cars required only prosaic (but nonetheless difficult) industrial production scaling. The robotaxi requires Tesla to succeed in a huge AI leap, not the Actually Indians leap.

- Tesla's previous cars were built upon a base of delivery from previous models. The cybertruck is generally a failure, it won't be mass market. I predict Tesla stock will tank when its sales tank in the next 6 months.

"Yes Chinese EVs have superior economics. It's quite difficult to have both high labor rates "living wages!" and cheap cars. Tesla is still the most competitive in this regard vs. other US automakers."

- Tesla doesn't have battery tech or drivetrain leadership. It may have a couple percent efficiency advantage. They have no battery economic advantage over other makers, especially since the future is about sodium ion and LFP from CATL and other Chinese battery makers.

- Sodium Ion in particular is the great leveler for the car industry. 1/3rd the cost of NMC chemistry, it will enable even legacy auto to make dirt cheap cars. Tesla won't be willing to go downmarket

"Makes sense to oppose subsidies, Tesla's stance has always been if you remove the subsidies for gas cars then EVs will already be highly competitive just on merit alone."

Are there mass market sales of EVs from a dozen car companies? Is 30% of new car sales EVs, or even PHEV or EVs combined?

Is it paramount to get consumer transportation electrified from a carbon emissions standpoint?

Fine, it's clear you aren't an environmentalist and are just pro-Tesla from a stock fundamentals / crass business perspective. But this statement ALSO means that Tesla isn't environmentalist anymore, and excluding them from subsidies is perfectly plausible.

- Tesla is better than other union automakers in terms of living wages and cost competition? Do you have data?

> - They DESPERATELY want to keep Chinese EVs out of the marketplace, who have superior economics, possibly superior or at least equal drivetrain/system integration ability, and likely better and more flexible battery pack architectures especially for all the chemistry types (NMC, LFP, Sodium Ion). Thus they want tariffs.

Unless Trump is about to slap tariffs on all EV imports, not just China, it looks like a matter of time before the likes of Hyundai, Honda and Nissan are coming to eat their lunch (and maybe some day the Europeans or Toyota as well, though I'm sceptical).

Especially as Tesla is stuck with fundamentally flawed self-driving features while the others are working to get e.g. Waymo in their cars.

The entire point of the original credit, before it was changed in the IRA, was to incentivize new entrants into the electric car space. Just because Tesla, Ford, Toyota, and GM were able to play politics and get a huge incentive in perpetuity instead, doesn't mean California has to make the same mistake with their own implementation.

https://www.irs.gov/credits-deductions/manufacturers-and-mod...

Why should California taxpayers subsidize other Californians to buy EVs that are made in other states? Like if you care about emissions aren't the cars made in California using California's relatively green electricity, higher worker standards, and short distance to travel after manufacture better than ones made elsewhere? Even if you don't want to support Tesla, not even having a carveout for cars manufactured in the state seems insane.

Going a step further, why should there be tax incentives at all for a product that is wildly popular and seeing adoption even without a tax credit? These credits were introduced back when the field was new and the presumption was some government influence was necessary to jumpstart mass production.

Perhaps one can see it as the inverse of a tax on ICE vehicles without adding a tax? It will be revenue negative for the state but I think the net effect on consumers would be the same?

I guess one could argue that a tax on ICE vehicles are to pay for the externalities of pollution

Taxpayers pay for the tax credit. An ICE tax would be added revenue.

> why should there be tax incentives at all for a product that is wildly popular and seeing adoption even without a tax credit?

To reduce air pollution and combat climate change. To encourage ICE manufacturers to switch.

The point is that the tipping point has already been reached. People who want electric vehicles are going to buy one, with or without the tax credit. Those who don't (e.g. because they can't have a charger where they live) aren't going to be swayed by the tax credit. It's not clear it has any effect on EV adoption anymore.

There's enough people on the fence for $7500 to matter. Car demand is price elastic.

It’s less that they are made in other states. It’s that they used all the resources here then left after making it big. Pull up the ladder after succeeding.

What resources did they “use up”? Also they still manufacture in CA right?

Promoting competition is always good for the end consumer, and certainly Tesla doesn't need any help in that regard.

As for the politicization of this company through his owner, that law is nothing more than a small speed bump because for the 4 next years, people will be outraged the other way around - no doubt that a lot of laws will be passed to favor Tesla (and SpaceX, Starlink, etc.)

CA didn't need EV credits to help electrification, could just waive 10% sales tax on EVs...

And nationalize PG&E to get rid of exploitative power rates.

> And nationalize PG&E to get rid of exploitative power rates.

This needs to be highlighted more. Electricity is so expensive with PG&E that it is going to hold back anything that needs electricity. A few more rounds of price hikes and we'll be at $1/kWh!

If the PG&E price increases continue in their current pattern, in less than ten years my PG&E monthly bill will be larger than my mortgage! This is not sustainable.

Earlier price hikes this year were explicitly structured to capture all the "lost" revenue from solar. Basically if you have solar panels and are selling the power back to the grid, the various fees make it cost the same as if you just bought the power from PG&E in the first place.

It is insane that California utilities commission lets them get away with this. Blatant corruption.

Politically, I generally put my chips down on the liberal side of things - and this ain’t it. This is the kind of stuff that makes you go “maybe Ayn Rand had a point”.

Arguably, the only reason Musk has decided to wade into politics is exactly this kind of shit - how can one build a business in an arbitrarily regulated environment, where it’s one rule for me, and one for thee? The regulatory environment is supposed to be impartial, and to act for the greater good - not to be a political weapon to wield against your enemies.

Things which spring to mind:

- the FCC excluding starlink from rural broadband subsidies

- never ending DFEH investigations in California

- disproportionate NHTSA scrutiny compared to other automakers and self-drive systems

- federal EV tax credit exclusion

- FAA foot-dragging over starship

I’m not saying that these are universally regulatory harassment, but one can readily see from how his perspective this paints a pretty damning overall picture, and I can’t say that in his shoes I wouldn’t be going the same way.

Starlink not getting rural broadband subsidies is an example of the regulatory environment being impartial and applying the same rules to everyone. There were minimum performance requirements attached the subsidies and Starlink fell short.

The FAA has processed Starship matters about as fast as the process similar things for other companies.

Tesla hasn't faced any more scrutiny from NHTSA than anyone other carmaker who has put a beta purported full self driving system in production cars sold to the public.

The measurement time for performance was 25/26 for RDOF.

That's incredibly petty and I like it. Half of America has only contempt for anyone who tries to play nice, get played, and cries that it's not fair. If you want to win, you have to play to win. If you want people to stop listening to Elon Musk, you have to make him a loser.

It's time Democrats took the lesson.

Can you think what would happen if your enemies applied this logic to you and your friends?

You mean, like the current status of America?

Where have you been the last 8 years? This is exactly what "your enemies" (in your context) have been doing.

Yes, and it’s happened twice in eight years.

not sure its petty as such.

They're deliberately trying to bolster smaller industry starters... the market in in danger of being a monopoly split between 1 or 2 US brands and the flood Chinese brands...

Tesla is in no danger from this piece of legislation.

Nah, you just have to double-down on what Musk himself has started: Complete the poisoning of the Tesla brand.

Musk committed CEO malpractice. Utter malpractice. One of the cornerstone pillars of Tesla is environmentalist progressivism. There is no way any democrat or environmentalist or liberal can look at this election and stomach buying a Tesla in the future.

At LEAST 50% of Tesla's existing customer base is identified democrats. Every time Trump speaks in the next four years, identified democrats will viscerally feel that, and remember Musk, and blame Tesla.

A car company's MOST IMPORTANT customers are recurring customers. Brand loyalty is paramount to a car brand. Tesla does not have enough right wing converts, especially since they are generally in rural areas underserved or not served by charging infrastructure, to make up for the customer loss.

IMO Musk's stewardship of Tesla has shown huge amounts of failed opportunities:

Primarily, is that after 17 years, Tesla basically sells two cars: a crossover and a sedan, with two sizes. Medium sized and slightly bigger. No delivery trucks, minivans, real pickups, city cars, kei cars, station wagons, sports cars, convertibles, large SUVs, large pickups/commercial vehicle platforms. No heavy machinery, heavy equipment.

To that end, Tesla likely had ample opportunity to push its battery tech, drivetrains, and expertise into far more markets and segments by simply acquiring or partnering with a struggling ICE company (pick any one of a half-dozen that Geely or China have acquired in the last decade).

Tesla could have pushed for advanced/capable PHEVs of high quality (think the Chevy Volt but better) with that cross-partnership and achieved electrification and profits and education of mass market buyers into EV advantages much more quickly and at scale

Tesla could have used the acquired company for downmarket branding and cheaper EVs. It could allow the use of conventional OEM design to more rapidly bring vehicle types to market.

Tesla has not scaled production sufficiently in the last couple years in my opinion. A lot of that is lack of diversification of models, an inability/resistance to use OEM suppliers, and no longer being interested in "gigafactory" construction with the same aggression.

Home solar and home storage is basically a joke and forgotten in Tesla, again, a waste of their once-great brand.

Repairability, quality, customer service, parts availability is pathetically bad, again because of resistance to OEM usage.

Finally, Tesla is likely the least favorite company of the three major ones he heads. He is AWOL from leadership essentially, and it shows.

All that and you didn't mention how the political bent started. Musk voted for Biden in Nov 2020 after all.

Biden had an official govt EV summit in 2021 in his first year where Tesla wasn't invited, and he praised GM's CEO as the pioneer and leader of EVs when it produced 25 EVs that quarter and Tesla produced ~200K. A ridiculous thing to do stand there and just lie.

Why? Because the auto union that heavily donates to Dem campaigns didn't want Tesla there. It shows Dems don't care about the environment as much as you think if they just decide to throw a company that was doing a lot for the environment under the bus for purely political reasons, including almost excluding Tesla from the federal EV credits to help the unions. Musk got the message.

Let’s be honest - we all know the “market share limitations” are just a construct to eliminate Tesla from eligibility, not something to actually help other automakers - which would not make sense anyways since Tesla has a better product and is the only one manufacturing in CA. This is obvious political discrimination and it shouldn’t be legal. We need to change the law to treat political views as a protected trait, to protect individuals and organizations.

> Tesla has a better product

Isn't there room for a different "better product" for each individual?

You may like a MacBook and I may prefer a ThinkPad. One is not better than the other, it depends on our individual needs.

My Kia EV6 is a much better car for me than any Tesla.

Just a few of the many reasons:

Physical controls that are so much like my old gas Kia: A stalk for the lights. Another for the wipers. Plenty of buttons on the steering wheel that I can find by touch. And regen paddles like the gear shift paddles on some gas cars, so I can adjust the regen level without taking my eyes off the road. I only rarely have to use the touchscreen while driving.

Dual displays, with essential driving information right in front of me, and "infotainment" functions on the center display.

"Vegan suede" seats that feel like a high quality cloth seat and keep me cooler than a leather seat (vegan or not).

Of course if a Tesla is a better car for you, I have no quarrel with that. I'm glad you found the best car for yourself, just as I have.

Should it be more or less protected than race? Tesla as a company seems to think protected class doesn't matter.

https://www.npr.org/2021/10/05/1043336212/tesla-racial-discr...

> Should it be more or less protected than race?

Equal.

> Tesla as a company seems to think protected class doesn't matter.

I don’t see evidence for this. Sure any examples of discrimination like those in the article are bad. Is it deserving of $137 million in punitive damages that are arbitrarily decided? I don’t think so. But regardless of that case, I am fairly certain most people in Tesla and Musk himself feel race should be a protected class.

Arbitrarily decided is how all judicial and jury decisions are made. They're all arbitrary. There are no objective court cases like this one. We have a justice system, it arbitrates. Sometimes those decisions are surprising. But like, using arbitrary in this way suggests you don't like the judicial apparatus generally.

Can you explain why systematic racism in one of the richest company's in the world isn't deserving of the amount of damages awarded and that the amount is arbitrary? Should the amount have been lower so they would effectively not feel it and feel emboldened to continue with their actions? Would you have been ok with a lower fine and jail time for anyone in the org chart that knew?

> we all know the “market share limitations” are just a construct to eliminate Tesla from

Based on what?

> We need to change the law to treat political views as a protected trait, to protect individuals and organizations.

Why would we want to do that? It's also totally impractical because everything is politicized.

The 14th amendment equal protection clause can be used here to invalidate that part of the law after it is passed, if the plaintiff can find evidence from lawmakers that the law was about singling out Tesla, as opposed to it being happenstance from the metrics in the proposal

It's probably both? These kind of incentives were in place when the only player was Tesla.

"which would not make sense anyways since Tesla has a better product"

I had a different experience. Watching a Cybertruck which had flat-bottomed itself in sand as my Subaru winched it out made me think more about getting an F-150 lightning.

Not a Subaru?

I already have one, don't need two! Just got this one, to boot. Customized 2013 outback with rally off-road package (paddle shifters, better shocks, still same crummy articulation.) I was thinking more electric vehicle that can do off-roading.

I'd love to see a small EV truck or wagon with its motor attached to an actual 4x4 transmission. Don't care if auto or manual (but no CVT please, I'm not entirely a fan of mine) but the slight loss of power and gentler acceleration of the tires actually helps when you're on stuff like sand. You don't want to instantly spin your wheels, even in tiny pulses. You want as even of a power profile as you want to stay on top and not dig yourself down like the Cybertruck did.

They don't have center diffs or transfer cases on electric vehicles because range would be harmed too much. Battery capacity is a real bottleneck that creates a lot of engineering challenges (must have an efficient drivetrain, efficient aero). Seems like they can program their way out of the lack of low gearing if they wanted too since you have good torque at low rpm with electric.

Do Subaru offer electric trucks?

Both Cybertruck and F-150 are trucks, not cars or SUVs.

Well, the criteria seemed to be not getting stuck in sand is why I asked.

Tesla have benefitted for years from their association with Musk. Deliberately so, their marketing has never been afraid to associate the two very closely when he’s perceived as a genius inventor, the real life Tony Stark, yadda yadda. It’s just come back to bite them. Specifically drawing a circle around “politics” seems like a very convenient opt-out clause.

> We need to change the law to treat political views as a protected trait

Just as soon as someone can define what “political views” are and aren’t, I guess? To choose an extreme example: if I’m a racist that’s bad but if I believe in the political concept of a whites-only ethnostate is that protected?

It’s very, very difficult to define where “politics” starts and stops.

> if I’m a racist that’s bad but if I believe in the political concept of a whites-only ethnostate is that protected?

Bad views are protected. That's the point of it. Not difficult.

So racists are a protected class in this world? I’m alright without, thanks.

Those professing unpopular beliefs and belonging to unpopular religions were the very first 'protected class' listed in the constitution.

Not really a 'class' though, since the protection applies to everybody.

So racism is just an “unpopular belief” now? Got it, got it. Still a no from me though, thanks.

It's not the first time that California government officials have held Elon Musk's political beliefs against him and his companies...

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/10/california-reject-m...

It's absolutely disgusting whether you agree with his politics or not. As Americans we're better than this.

But...you're not, this is entirely normal politics now. DeSantis has been waging open war on Disney for years, Cruz has gone after everyone from Blackrock to Target for political reasons. The incoming administration has made no secret it intends to use any and every lever to hurt any opposition. At some point you need to stop pretending to be surprised by entirely quotidien events and accept this is in fact precisely who you are.

There will also be exceptions for any general principle. Remember, Americans still allow TikTok despite mainland China banning almost every major US social network. Citing a few events and calling them "quotidien" doesn't make it so.

E.g, Twitter/X is still flourishing in the US while regulators in the EU frequently threaten it.

Correction: China has never banned any US social network. That said social network decided not to comply with local laws is their decision. Even Tiktok does not work in China

Yes, those examples you gave are also disgusting, but do not make politically motivated actions against Elon Musk right.

Is it right? That's endlessly debatable. But is it unusual, unexpected or 'not who we are'? No, that is clear and if anything this is at the mild end of recent weaponisation of political office against businesses.

no, but they do make them normal.

You've moved the goal post. You said "we're better than this". You got several instances where, clearly, we are not.

Take the L here. Acknowledge we're not better than this and arguably never have been. Next time consider, "we should aspire to be better than this".

And to be clear, I didn't vote Harris or Trump, both parties do this gross stuff.

In the examples you're listing, those actions were overwhelmingly supported by Floridians and Texans respectively, and worked to increase the overall support of those politicians.

Is this the sort of action that Californians would broadly support? If so, then more power to them. If not then this is the political class playing petty games to the detriment of the people they're supposed to be representing.

So you’re asking if the majority of Californians would gladly see Musk be excluded from these benefits? Seems like the recent election results would be a pretty good indicator of how that would go. And assuming that they would, then you’re okay with it, right?

Also, don’t confuse gerrymandered elections with overwhelming support. Texas turned disenfranchising people into an art form. What the voting lines say and what the people want are rarely aligned. The Texas government knows this. The people know this (ex Texan here). Its cleverly and not secretly crafted to make it nearly impossible for the state to go blue.

Musk makes $0 directly from these benefits. He only gains from those who buy a Tesla with the perk, but wouldn't otherwise, and that number is going to be quite small. The primary beneficiaries, by far, are normal citizens of California. And I really doubt they're thrilled about paying more because of petty political games.

Ted Cruz is a Senator - gerrymandering plays 0 role in his victory, which was far more dominant in 2024 than 2018.

> concerns that all SpaceX launches would be considered military activity, shielding the company from having to acquire its own permits, even if military payloads aren’t being carried.

If that's accurate then the way they're holding it against him is making him follow the existing rules. But maybe that's a smokescreen? I'm unsure how to judge that situation.

But for the topic article, if he's going to be inside the group of people that are cutting federal EV subsidies, I don't think he gets to complain about not getting EV subsidies.

EV subsidies were intended to backstop the EV supply chain buildup. EV subsidies should be retired when EVs are economically viable on their own merits. We have had EV subsidies for 16 years.

In my opinion 16 years is long enough for the experiment, and it is an appropriate time to discuss the usefulness of EV subsidies going forward.

I think tax rates should be higher. So does that mean I should have to pay extra taxes by myself and the rates for everyone else should stay the same?

Are you a billionaire?

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