Those companies were not financed by taxpayers. Taxpayers bought some of their stuff, like flights to the space station from space x. Notice that not only did Boeing charge significantly more for human flights to space than spaceX, almost 50% more than SpaceX but they failed to deliver.
On evs, any company could get those subsidies that were designed to kick off the market. They worked brilliantly to kick off the market, it is just that most legacy car companies failed to produce evs, thus they had to pay other companies (Tesla is far from the only company to get money on top of sales for producing evs).
They weren't, if you meant taxpayers subsidized them. Have you seen the hops Tesla has to jump in order to sell cars to consumers, like in Texas or Michigan?
NASA is indeed SpaceX's most important customer, but taxpayers in fact save lot of money because SpaceX's offerings are much more competitive than those of other providers.
They were actually not. And in the cases tax payer funding was involved it was not some sort of blank check.
SpaceX got to orbit and was financed privately. Only once SpaceX had proven that capability, they were selected by the government to deliver cargo to ISS. SpaceX had to submit a competitive bid and was selected because they were the cheapest. SpaceX has fully executed on this contract and it was by far cheaper then any other transport to ISS service, including Russian, European, Japanese and US competition (Orbital ATK).
During its whole live, government contracts were never more then half SpaceX contracts and SpaceX was and is a viable buissness without government contracts. The main financing for SpaceX has been privately raised money.
NASA was a helpful costumer to SpaceX and helped it grow faster but calling that 'taxpayer funded' is a waste overstatement.
Tesla equally was privately funded and operate like that for much of its early history. The DoE loan only started rolling in by 2010 and helped them fund Model S. This loan was fully payed back with interest. Again, the majority of funding threw-out Tesla history is privately raised, including Roadster, Model X, Model 3, Model Y programs.
Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back. GM of course had to be saved totally by the government.
Calling Tesla 'taxpayers funded' is just complete nonsense.
Teslas total subsidies divided by total amount of cars produced: $2500 per car. These, to my knowledge, do not include the various EV incentives the buyers get.
GM total subsidies divided by total amount of cars produced from 2010 onwards (couldn't find an all-times number): $77 per car.
> Its important to not that GM, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler received far, far, far more resources in the 2008-2012 timeframe and most of that has unlike Tesla not been payed back
Most has not been paid back? What figures are you using for this? My understanding is that the bailout was ~$80bn, but the final cost to the government was approximately $9bn.
When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way.
But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best.
I have not researched this in many years but not all that money has been payed back by Ford, GM and so on. Just recently Ford moved back another payback claiming Corona as an excuse.
I assume the majority has been payed back but I have not followed this in exact detail. However the point stands that Tesla has not received the majority of government help.
> When people complain about Tesla being taxpayer funded, they're generally referring to EV incentives, not the DoE loan. Tesla has indeed been supported quite a lot in that way.
Frankly, this is just a wrong believe people have. Tesla has the exact same EV incentives as the competition, that amounts to 7500$ per car. Tesla has long run out of these, as they only cover 250'000 vehicles and then fall off. GM just like Tesla has made use of this and has also almost ran out as well. Ford still has many left and will and does make use of that to make their upcoming Mach-E a more price competitive product.
So there really is nothing Tesla specific and the competition has profited just as much.
Next up, there are credits based on fuel standard compliance. This existed long before Tesla. These are competitively sold for California (and other states) and Europe. Tesla does make a money from these this is not from the government or tax payers, rather other car companies who do not comply with fuel standards. Its a fine for car makers who fail to comply with regulation. But again, all car manufactures have the exact same opportunity to engage in that market.
Yes, it is a wrong belief. I think it was pretty clear I wasn't endorsing it, just explaining it.
It's a bit of a bummer to say something of the form: I think they mean X, which is still wrong because Y. Only to be downvoted and have multiple responses explaining that X is wrong because Y.
I don't disagree with anything you wrote in either comment (with the exception of the bailout payback thing, which I do believe you overstated).
> But even if you value the environment at $0, other car manufacturers are going to benefit just as much from at least the FITC, so the argument is transient at best.
My post should be read as: the position I think GP is taking is different to what you're responding to, but either way it's bullshit.
