If Tesla Would Stop Selling Cars, We’d All Save Some Money
cato.org
cato.org
That's a pretty big leap on the Authors part, one that isn't really justified from facts or information. We know basically nothing about Tesla's plans for their cheaper models or what they have/will do to reduce the cost.
It's really bizarre to me how much certain groups are just itching for Tesla to fail.
Am I missing something?
Patrick Michaels is a climate change denialist. He himself has estimated that about 40% of his funding comes from the oil companies. He has been criticised for manipulating the data of other scientists - not trivial mistakes or oversights, but deliberate serious manipulations. (Here's just one example where a colleague almost accuses him of fraud (http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2005/Crichton_20050927.pdf)
> One of the skeptics, Pat Michaels, has taken the graph from our 1988 paper with simulated global temperatures for scenarios A, B and C, erased the results for scenarios B and C, and shown only the curve for scenario A in public presentations, pretending that it was my prediction for climate change. Is this treading close to scientific fraud?
He's part of the Cato Institute, who have publically said they disagree with the scientific consensus on climate change.
Disappointing to see this worthless tripe on HN, and to see it getting any votes.
It would be nice if Hacker News could avoid the worst abuses of language that happens in public debate.
1) Climate has always and will always be 'changing'. It is a dynamic, not static, system.
2) No one denies that climate changes so 'climate change denialists' is the empty set.
3) To dispute the theory of 'catastrophic anthropogenic global warming' is not the same as denying 'warming', 'global warming' or even 'anthropogenic global warming'. It is only when you add in the 'catastrophic' part (which comes from the magnitude of the predicted positive feedbacks in global climate models) that you enter into the realm of serious disputes.
4) There is considerable evidence that there has been no statistically significant global warming for the last 20 years (anthropogenic or not) and even more evidence that the magnitude of the positive feedback included in the 'catastrophic anthropogenic global warming' models is much smaller than previously assumed.
5) If the climate models only match actual temperatures by lowering the postive feedbacks in the models then they are probably no longer predicting catastrophic warming.
Also 6) If client change is assumed to be occurring, catastrophic, and anthropogenic, what can and should we even do about it? Are the cures worse than the disease?
It's disappointing to see someone avoid addressing every single one of the issues raised in the original article, and instead focusing on attacking the author.
Would you care to address any of the points he made in the original article?
But what he wrote was: "Disappointing to see this worthless tripe on HN, and to see it getting any votes."
That is an ad-hominem attack, and disappointing to see on HN.
I want people to not waste their time bothering to check that guy's claims.
Scientists gather data and form an opinion.
This guy has an opinion before he sees any data; he's paid at least 40% of his funding for having that opinion; and then manipulates data to fit that opinion. He misrepresents other people's work and other people's opinions.
If he had lied once or twice then perhaps there's some useful information to be had by carefully checking what he's saying. But the pattern is so strong that people can safely ignore him. Just as we ignore the time-cube guy, or people who use phrases like quantum touch healing.
That is pretty much the definition of an ad-hominem attack.
Your criticisms of his approach are valid, but also apply to a good number of climatologists whose income is more dependent upon pro-AGW funding this his is dependent upon oil company funding. Glass houses, stones, etc.
FWIW, my position is that correlation between human activity and climate change has (finally) been solidly established, but:
- our models lack any real predictive ability w.r.t. future climate, except to say "interesting stuff will happen."
- catastrophic climate change happens regardless of human input
Given the above two points I'm unconvinced that there's any AGW-based argument for legislation. Argument based on atmospheric pollution harming human life? Sure.
Instead, we should be focusing on growing our technological and academic capacity towards climate engineering. Regardless of what AGW brings, at some point in our history, we will need to tweak the climate to survive.
No. He is paid to produce FUD. He is repeating a well known pattern of disruption that was pioneered by tobacco companies.
He has a track record for lying, for manipulating other people's research, for misrepresenting other people's views.
I'm not going to waste any time with people who are so intellectually dishonest and who are being paid to waste my time; people who are paid to spread misinformation and confusion.
The Tesla Roadster was ridiculous, but the cash it generated and the lessons it taught them gave them the opportunity to scale with the S sedan. Now the S sedan will give them that same cash/lessons combination to expand with whatever comes next.
This is no different than scaling a software startup, if you think about it.
It is an "ounce of prevention" thing.
If .01% of cars are electric and the chargers are not conveniently placed, then everyone will continue purchasing a ICE vehicle.
If 5% of cars are electric, then people will see the benefits and that the cars are practical, then people will be significantly more likely to consider an electric vehicle for their next purchase.
75 million per 10,000 electric vehicles? It's costly but it's necessary, and in my humble opinion, it will be well worth it.
The sooner we eliminate oil tankers and oil rigs, the better.
The answer to all these questions, of course, is that it's impossible to correctly account for these things in the market without causing unfathomable transaction costs. This is after all the definition of a negative externality.
But I can tell you as much, $7500 is a freaking bargain.
Proof please. Show your working.
Let's assume on the high side of 30mpg for a typical ICE vehice, so 449.20 gallons of gasoline per year.
Typical car lasts 10.8 years (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/autos/story/2012-01-17/...).
That's 4851.36 gallons over the lifetime of the vehicle. A gallon of gas converts to 19lbs of CO2 when burned. That's 92175.84 lbs of CO2 over the lifetime of the vehicle, or ~46 tons of CO2.
If you're basing the economic benefit solely off of the amount of CO2 not being pumped into the atmosphere on a per car basis, it probably doesn't make sense. Don't forget the technologic (energy storage R&D) and energy security benefits though.
Disclaimer: TSLA stock owner.
This is an article of faith for the green crowd. I and many others are skeptical of such a claim, especially when temperatures have dropped despite higher emissions the past 10 years.
Please link to a source for this claim.
Update: I'm not seeing this drop you are talking about.
http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004/pub/includes/columns/c...
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/why-the-globe-hasnt-warme...
"The answer, according to a new paper in Geophysical Research Letters, is that a lot of it is being stored in the deep ocean, more than a half-mile down[...] [b]ut sooner or later it will inevitably emerge, which means that the current slowdown in warming may well be balanced by a period of rapid warming in a few years — nobody knows how many — from now."
I think he meant that the global rate of increase in temperature has dropped, ie temperature has hardly changed in the last 10 years.
This article is claiming that "the Globe Hasn’t Warmed Much for the Past Decade" because the wind is blowing the heat energy down into the depths of the ocean?
Will they actually be tested against acceptance criteria defined in advance?
Am I reading the graph wrong?
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v3/Fig.A.gif
Looks like a rise to me.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:120/plot/wti/last:...
How do you figure? 2012 was the hottest year on record.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/01/130109-warme...
Or 2011:
>The WMO, part of the United Nations, said the warmest 13 years of average global temperatures have all occurred in the 15 years since 1997.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/29/us-climate-confere...
... for the continental US. Carbon is a global issue.
These debates are tiring. (Some) people on both sides will use whatever argument suits the current narrative, even if it disagrees with other arguments they make at later times. Compare what happens during a heat wave or a cold snap.
Fair point. It does, however, ignore the second link which was for global averages.
>In both cases, scientists said the 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming. Each year of the 21st century has ranked among the 14 hottest since record keeping began in 1880.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/16/2012-10-wa...
The claim that temperatures have dropped for the past ten years seems to be patently false from the data I'm finding.
I've seen the climate scientists' explanation for this and why it doesn't disagree with global warming and it doesn't set off my BS detectors (i.e., they seem like good explanations, but there are certainly ways they could lie to me and I couldn't detect it). Their direct statements are a much better source than the media's game of telephone with their reports.
That still doesn't seem to hold true. This is the UN WMO's report for 2012, direct; the graphs on pages 6 and 7 are particularly relevant:
http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1108_en.pdf
>I've seen the climate scientists' explanation for this and why it doesn't disagree with global warming and it doesn't set off my BS detectors (i.e., they seem like good explanations, but there are certainly ways they could lie to me and I couldn't detect it).
I'd certainly be willing to take a look if you could provide a source.
The explanation was having to do with local cycles, I believe. I didn't grok it well enough to understand it or else I would have presented it; it was, however, decent enough to pass my "this is BS" filter. A lot of things don't.
Could you please provide a citation or otherwise indicate where this information is coming from.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/wti/last:120/plot/wti/last:...
(Note that the "woodfortrees index" is a composite that combines a variety of standard temperature series, the better to avoid arguments as to which series to use. But if you're especially partial to one series or another, you can select those too. eg, here's Hadcru4 global mean: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut4gl/last:120/plot/ha... )
(the samples are monthly, so specifying "120 samples" gets you exactly ten years, starting and ending near the same (most recent) month.)
So don't be surprised that the Cato institute discounts that fact, since their funding comes from industries that can only survive by perpetuating this system.
Notice how they don't apply the logic that these tax cuts were someone else's tax burden.
C.f. the best way to repeal an unjust law is to make it get applied everywhere. If the governor's son has to spend 2 years in jail for pot possession, the pro-legalization should want him treated like every other person; if he gets a special exemption, then what they see as an unjust law can continue.
I can't believe this is on the front page of hacker news.
http://www.cato.org/blog/climate-impact-keystone-xl-pipeline
That is not stated or implied anywhere in the linked article. The Keystone Pipeline is a private project.
You gave an example about a general tax cut, but I think the concept behind supporting a general tax cut is that the supporter believes that the tax cut will not increase the debt load in the medium term because it will stimulate the economy, so nobody will actually have to pay to cover the taxes that are not being paid there. While I may not agree with this belief, it is more or less mainstream economics, and seems to be in line with the case made in the Bush tax cuts article.
History is pretty strong evidence that this idea is flatly wrong. So these tax cuts are a tax burden for someone else. I'd also argue that things like the large cut in the capital gains rate is not a tax cut that applies to most people. In fact, it's a rather targeted tax cut for the wealthiest.
One needs look no further than Cato's full-throated endorsement of oil subsidies[2]. Despite admitting externalities exist, they put their stamp of endorsement on oil industry subsidies while opposing far smaller industry-paid subsidies for Tesla, a company whose product harms profits of oil companies.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5753993 [2] http://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/big-oil-pub...
[2] clearly does not endorse subsidizing oil.
This sort of thing is why I'm tired of political news on HN.
[1] http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/eliminating-oil-...
[2] http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/oil-subsidies-do...
Because someone interpreted information differently than you, or did not do the same research as you? I think you'll tire quickly of political discussion anywhere, in that case.
From my perspective, your reply to the parent's comment is exactly why HN works. Someone makes an assertion, and another person comes along and adds additional information to better round out the issue. (Thank you for that, btw.)
That's about as close as anyone has ever come to fully-backing oil subsidies. They're not terribly popular in normal political discourse. The piece unveils a dubious argument that evades the fact that taxes on oil are used to finance the cost of roads and highways. They do not serve to mitigate national defense costs, environmental damages, or health costs caused by burning fossil fuels, extracting them, or refining them. These costs are borne mostly as hidden externalities paid by government and consumers.
Also, claiming that "That's about as close as anyone has ever come to fully-backing oil subsidies" is quite laughable.
The issue here is not mere inconsistency.
The need for early subsidies to make early profits has little bearing on whether they are a boon or a drain. Whether the cars are expensive or not is even more irrelevant. When the subsidies wear off, it's very likely that Tesla will have economies of scale working and more mainstream models. The jobs and environmental benefits have real value that Cato is not factoring into their simplistic formula.
This can be disputed, of course, but as it stands it doesn't make much sense to point to such factors as missing, in my opinion.
[1] http://energycenter.org/index.php/incentive-programs/clean-v...
Another critique of the article is that Leaf's sales numbers are not good evidence for future sales. Electric cars will make a lot more sense when fast charge stations become more commonplace. It's like saying (in 2004 or something) that nobody ever wants to buy a smartphone because there's only a few apps available.
1. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/under-the-hood/cost-of-car-own...
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/eliminating-oil-...
I tend to disagree with Cato's brand of libertarianism, but they are consistent.
I wonder how he felt about Lee Iacoca getting Congress to bail out Chrysler in the 80s.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7622306&page=3
It's really weird how many people don't grok libertarianism and assume Cato couldn't possibly be consistent about just not wanting stuff subsidized in general.
Tax subsidies are decided by legislators who are elected by us. So the claim - "completely against most of our wills" - is utterly false.
Well, that's your claim, but not everyone agrees.
I suspect the oil and car industries and their PR departments will push hard to repeal the tax credit as they are in this article. Also expect Tesla will push hard to tax carbon emitting vehicles. Should make for plenty link bait like this.
What year do you think the last ICE vehicle will be sold in the US? At some point, gas stations will stop selling gasoline. I honestly don't know if it'll be in 10 years or 50 years.
I live here, and I am no fan of Illinois, but the sales tax rate is 6.25 on autos right now, which mean the state makes back 98% of that subsidy every time a Tesla is sold.
Claiming they get an effective tax break by not paying gas taxes is absurd.
That said, the CATO article was beyond biased for all the reasons already mentioned.
Cato isn't so much a "conservative think tank" as a mouthpiece for certain established financial interests, such as the oil industry. So Cato's job is not to produce facts and logic, but rather to produce propaganda that bears a surface resemblance to facts and logic, in order to put a thumb on the political scales.
Tesla is what we in our little corner here call "disruptive innovation" - in this case, disrupting the automotive sector's dependence on the oil industry. This is a technically difficult and very expensive proposition, in the face of some extremely powerful vested interests at both the national level (Cato Institute for oil) and the local level (mandatory dealer laws in Texas, etc). Tesla is tackling this in part by relying on tax subsidies to consumers, based on the public good.
Now, if tax subsidies benefit Cato's backers, then Cato is all for tax subsidies. But if tax subsidies threaten their backers, then Cato is suddenly all righteous about "free markets". Cato doesn't give a crap about free markets. And their backers are scared... Detroit and other non-US auto manufacturers are sorta-neutral third parties here. They're not in the oil business, they're in the car manufacturing business. If Tesla's disruption is successful, they'd much rather adopt Tesla's model and cut Big Oil loose, than go out of business manufacturing dinosaur-fart burners.
So this post is mostly interesting in that grumbling about consumer tax subsidies on high-end luxury goods is the BEST they have.
The article compares pollution credits to bribery and a shakedown, but I don't quite get the case. Tesla doesn't get them for free, it actually has to produce low emission vehicles. And no one is forcing Honda to buy them from Tesla specifically (or technically at all). Honda isn't prepared to produce low emission cars, so the carbon credits market means they don't have to, so long as they're willing to bear the external costs in some other way.
Pollution credits are a relatively lassiez faire mechanism for converting a specific type of external costs to internal ones, and they seem to function pretty well. Not a leading question, but I'm honestly curious. What is the conservative or libertarian argument against them, and what approach would conservatives or libertarians prefer we took to the problem of large externalities?
1. It's impossible to calculate the true costs of an externality like "air pollution", therefore any number that the government chooses is arbitrary and unjust.
2. When an externality can be defined concretely as in "Action by person A harms person B or her/his property", then B can sue A to stop it and get compensated (e.g., a factory dumping chemicals to someone's land).
3. On the other hand, it's unreasonable for people to individually identify and sue car owners, therefore the best solution is to privatize roads, and then the road owner would be liable for the pollution, so he would have an incentive to raise prices or ban high polluting cars.
That said, this is not necessarily the position of the CATO Institute; I'm not sure where they stand.
For focussed negative externalities, a fairly common libertarian position is that they should be handled through civil damages in cases brought by those harmed.
For diffuse negative externalities, there's a mixture of a civil damages approaches and assumptions that, on balance, assessing and addressing diffuse negative externalities from market actions by any other means (even acknowledging that the civil damages approach is far from complete) creates additional negative externalities that are more significant than the original negative externalities, so you just have to give up.
1. Tesla is able to sell carbon credits it earns from selling its cars. Due to California law, other car companies must buy these credits to offset the sale of their fossil fuel burning cars. 2. Its customers get a lower price on their vehicles due to tax-credits for electric vehicles.
These are the laws in place which help a company like Tesla grow.
I would imagine these laws are designed to do exactly what they are doing, which is helping an electric car manufacture grow and compete in a world dominated by vehicles using fossil fuels.
The hidden argument he is making is that fossil fuels and climate change surely cost us nothing and should not be included at all in the cost of items which generate a third of CO2 emissions.
Except in this case, Honda is paying for Tesla's R&D instead of their own.
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Cato_Institute#Co...
American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, General Motors, Honda North America, Toyota Motor Corporation, Volkswagen of America
I'll put my hopes in Tesla. Long term thinking is where the future becomes reality.
Reducing dependency on petroleum is a trillion dollar issue. Tesla has made some major innovations in this area, including the multi-cell floorpan battery, and all the money they have spent buying batteries is used by suppliers to innovate on making them cheaper. Innovation only has to be done once, and right now every car company on the planet has Model S's on racks and are doing engineering tear downs. Tesla's engineering will probably pay dividends to the world in the amount of billions over the next 30 years. A few hundred million in state subsidies seems a small price to pay.
From the article: > About the only way they can do this (barring some—currently remote—major battery technology improvements) is by cutting the vehicle’s range.
It is completely lost on the author that one reason batteries get better (both directly and indirectly) is because Tesla builds cars.