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Comment by mrguyorama | Hacker News Reader

Because there are finite resources on earth and we should strive for efficient uses of them, not for maximum Ford profit. Corporations only exist at society's pleasure, thanks the the support of society's government and the property law that government applies using it's monopoly on violence. There is no right to profit.

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Okay, so Tesla has no or significantly more limited reason to build out a charging network. Good job, you made electric cars worse, thanks government.

Why not? The incentive for building the network was always to sell cars. They also make money by selling electricity. Neither of those would change. Gas stations fill any car, and they still exist.

Ok, but at least in such a case, Toyota should be forced to pay for the privilege.

Like is your position really that nobody that invests in infrastructure should be allowed to profit from its investment?

Tesla is being paid for it... they get increased federal funding, so they are being compensated in a way for it. For Toyota this is a direct threat, why should I give my competitors free money.

Ultimately, Tesla is asking for even more federal funding in this space... and I can assume they will hopefully try to get even more of that money

Yes Tesla is being paid. And that good.

But your argument seems to be that Tesla shouldn't get anything or shouldn't even allowed to have private infrastructure.

> Ultimately, Tesla is asking for even more federal funding in this space

I think Tesla would prefer to be any federal funding in this space.

Superchargers aren't free. There's money to be made by actually charging the cars.

Yes but Tesla can decide what the prefer, money or competitive advantage. If government just forced them to be open, then they don't have that choice.

Would it have been an ideal world would have been where there were Ford gas stations, GM gas stations, Chrysler gas stations, Toyota gas stations, Honda gas stations, Suzuki gas stations, Nissan gas stations, AMC gas stations, Studebaker gas stations, Plymouth gas stations, Mercury gas stations, Pontiac gas stations, etc. and none of these would have been interchangeable? We'd just have a dozen different gas stations all right next to each other all over the place, because each one wants to have their own competitive edge against the others for "the best" fueling infrastructure. Every time an auto manufacturing company got merged or went defunct, we'd just close down all those old legacy gas stations and any drivers of those would just be SOL.

To me that sounds like a nightmare, but I guess to each their own.

> etc.

You don't need to make 30 examples, your point is not hard to understand.

And you are arguing with a straw-men, I never argued that this is the best world.

Nor do I think an 'unregulated' market would lead to what you suggest, as we already see in the electric charging station market. Almost all non-Tesla stations are shared. And Tesla long term would likely do so eventually to, even without govenrment intensive.

> Every time an auto manufacturing company got merged or went defunct, we'd just close down all those old legacy gas stations

At this point you are just making idiotic argument. Like seriously? Have you ever heard of liquidation and reallocation of resources.

If a major network of industry exists that comes up for sale, like the other would bid on it and a modify it for their standard.

So, do you agree its probably not in the consumer's best long term interest for charging networks to be tightly coupled with single manufacturers and we should probably disincentivize such structures from existing?

Do you think Tesla keeping their network proprietary for long ultimately increased or decreased overall EV sales in the past few years? Do you think more or fewer Bolts and Leafs would have been sold if they would have been able to use a true open standard of Tesla chargers?

Imagine how many consumers worries would be alleviated if Tesla allowed all cars to charge on their network today. Wouldn't that be great? Which is more harmful to consumers: a proprietary network or an open one?

Imagine if Ford bought out all the prime gas station locations along highway corridors and made them Ford only gas stations. A true win for consumers.

Maybe we shouldn't allow single corporations to control important infrastructure with proprietary standards?

My point has always been that if government want's to create infrastructure for everybody, those companies that have done their own infrastructure and have done the initial investment should be rewarded and those that didn't and just want to profit from the government investment should be forced to pay large amounts of money.

Now the government is investing its own money and this simply rewards companies like Toyota who have done nothing and will profit the most. Specially because its of foreign company, that makes it even worse.

So by all means, create infrastructure for everybody, but take into account how the market got to the point it is.

“There is no right to profit” means “the incentive has been removed”.

Congratulations; you’ve just broken the system (even though it was well-meaning).

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