Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9B in government subsidies | Hacker News Reader

Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9B in government subsidies

latimes.com

21 pointsem3rgent0rdr17 comments

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Wasn't that the point of the subsidies? To foster innovation, and kickstart green energy / transportation?

Sounds like it's working....

Indeed...

From the article: "He definitely goes where there is government money".

In other words, he definitely goes where we wish more people would go.

I concur. The whole point is for the government to steer a market and that is what is happening and we are getting results!

The opimistic takeaway might be; "Government pushes market in right direction." :P

A two year old bs hit piece that's been repeatedly debunked gets resurfaced on hn after two years...why am I not surprised

It might help alter people's viewpoints more efffectively if you linked to debunking.

Probably the most effective way to debunk these types of stories is to point out the hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies we've put into fossil-fuel energy over the years. A few billion more or less for Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity hardly seems worth complaining about in comparison.

It's been argued that most of the US defense budget is a "subsidy" of our appetite for oil. I usually find such arguments facile, but in that particular instance, I'll be darned if I can come up with any good rejoinders.

Reminds me of people who complain about the cost of 1-mile of lightrail but don't know the cost of 1-mile of freeway.

I'd probably be guilty of that one myself. Energy can be converted from one form to another when/where needed, and wheeled vehicles can go wherever there's a road, but fixed rail is stuck in one place forever. A rant for a different thread...

Wheeled vehicles can go wherever we build roads... each road costs the taxpayer X / mile / year ... if we knew these costs we could make some rational decisions. The basic urbanism thesis posited by Charles Marohn and others, which I subscribe to, is that suburbs are not dense enough to maintain themselves (maintain roads, sewer, etc.) with the tax base

Needs a "(2015)" label.

Wow. Hold on. I need to find a piece of furniture to lean up against, I'm in such shock.

Musk speaks out against Trump and then this banal piece about public subsidies reappears? Yeah. It's just such shocking timing I'm going to need to lie down.

As others have already noted, this was written before the election (2015).

I did say "re".

It seems the subsidies are accomplishing their purpose. They attracted private businesses to compete in the industry, and that competition and experience is bringing costs down to self-sustaining levels.

Live by the subsidy, die by the subsidy.

Tesla Inc TSLA (NASDAQ) 339.85USDPrice decrease0.52 (0.15%) Closed: Jun 2, 7:59 PM EDT - Disclaimer After-hours: 339.65Price decrease

1) US Army needs MANY batteries and 2) NSA needs many - especially small - batteries to do their job. Can you imagine how surveillance would spread everywhere if just batteries would be small enough? 3) Germany car industry is HUGE. Why not take some business away from them?

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