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Much more insidious than just that. Included was about $125 million of actual state tax credits that Tesla can sell to others for cash! It's similar, for example, to the environmental tax credits that the state of California gives to Tesla that it then resells to other carmakers that need them in order to operate in the state. There have been quarters in which the sale of those tax credits has been the biggest revenue generator for the company. We are not talking about income tax deductions that reduce the rate their profits are taxed (Tesla doesn't earn money, so that would be moot anyhow). We are talking about outright subsidization -- as in Tesla being given money at others' expense (i.e. -- subsidization when you aren't twisting yourself into a pretzel to redefine the word).

 

Back up WHAT argument -- with WHAT link? This isn't a masturbation exercise in using google to try to find a bunch of misleading things (with or without context) in an effort to "prove" whatever it is you want to believe. YOU were the one that made a comparison between the subsidies that the EV industry has gotten and the oil industry -- a false equivalency YOU introduced (while racing in to call me bunch names -- ignoring my actual post). Why is it incumbent on me to do anything? You said that the oil industry is "subsidized" by the rest of us. That just isn't true. None of those random links you furiously googled up demonstrated that the oil industry has taken a penny out of my pocket -- simply because it hasn't!

Mother Jones or the Huffington Post can write endless articles about subsidies (which are only subsidies using tortured logic), assigning their made up dollar amounts to whatever tax benefits they arbitrarily cherry pick to call "subsidies" -- without any reference to the fact that those kinds of specialized tax benefits exist across nearly every industry you can imagine, with many industries getting even better income tax deductions.

NEARLY EVERYONE IS "SUBSIDIZED" USING THAT KIND OF NONSENSICAL ANALYSIS. Do you get that?

The difference is that Mother Jones isn't writing articles trying to demonize farm equipment manufacturers or steel makers or farmers or hospitals -- all of which could have the same exact kinds of articles written about them -- complete with ridiculous dollar amounts attached to their "subsidies" -- in the same kind of vacuum that doesn't point out that our WHOLE TAX SYSTEM IS A TANGLED MESS OF SPECIALIZED DEDUCTIONS. Any of those industries receives [make up your number] billions of dollars of "subsidies" using that kind of specious analysis. It's not incumbent on me to "back up" anything, when I point that out. You were the one who made a claim about the oil industry being subsidized by the rest of us. I simply said that it isn't true -- the oil industry lives on money it actually earns selling something, not by cash transfers from the rest of us. It isn't TAKING money from the rest of us that it didn't earn selling product -- the way Tesla has. The suggestion is silly.

I don't care what random article or link you found to try to affirm what you want to believe told you about Tesla. Tesla's subsidization has gone WAY beyond plant and equipment and R&D income tax deductions -- the things in the tax code that apply to way more entities than oil companies, for what it is worth. Tesla hasn't earned a penny selling cars. In fact, it burns through cash, socializing its costs via preferential treatment that few, if any, other industries are beneficiary of. In addition to outright abatements, it has included subsidized loans -- funded by you and me at the expense of potentially more productive uses. Tax credits, many combined with regulatory schemes that allow Tesla to convert those credits into cash (at the expense of other car manufacturers).

ZEV credits, for example, have netted Tesla hundreds of millions dollars at the expense of others. When it sells an EV, it gets BS credits that it is then allowed to turn around and sell to other car manufacturers for cash. In fact, those other car manufacturers have to buy those credits to even operate in California. That cost is borne by everyone who buys cars from those other manufacturers -- it drives up the cost of non EV cars and the money is a direct transfer right to Tesla-- translating to cash for nothing to Tesla because it has been given political preference. It is corrupt. That battery plant in Nevada? This was NOT Tesla being given an income tax deduction of some sort to induce it locate there. It included no payroll or property tax for the next 10 years, for example. The kind of benefit no one (least of all anyone in the oil industry) otherwise gets. But forget even that. It also included exactly what I pointed out: $195 million of tax credits for Tesla to turn around and sell for cash. A cash bribe. I don't need to google furiously to try to create a set of "facts" about that. I am not starting out with what I *want* to believe. It's the truth!

 

Tesla got a half billion dollar "loan"-- backed with warrants that we (given that the loan came from ALL OF US!) were never able to cash in on, because even though the loan hadn't created a profitable company, Tesla simply used the seed money we provided until the warrants would have been due, and then issued debt and diluted its stock with a secondary issuance to pay it back. I'd like a "loan" like that. They don't hand them out to me, though. Hell, Exxon will gladly take a "loan" like that.

Tesla has EVERY unit of the product it sells subsidized by the Federal government and various state governments -- through dollar-for-dollar tax credits to the buyer. In practice, it has the rest of us -- when we buy a car OTHER than a Tesla -- subsidizing a bunch of wealthy people buying toys -- because these are $100,000 + cars. YES, THAT IS VERY FUCKING DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING RELATED TO THE OIL INDUSTRY. The Federal government doesn't reduce the price of oil for consumers with dollar-for-dollar tax credits at the user level to make the industry's product effectively cost less. Christ.

Then (my posts are "useless" and they are "theories" when you just delete them without actually reading them, but I'll post it again anyhow) Tesla gets a variety of made-up regulatory credits that it then resells for millions of dollars to companies that are fucked over by that corrupt regulatory scheme and need to hand money to Tesla in order to just operate in the perverse environment. Those ZEV credit sales have been THE MAJOR source of actual income for the company. It doesn't make shit selling cars. You want a link? Pull up every fucking earnings release, Waldo. Pull up its last five 10-Ks. Christ. This is right from their 10-K they filed for 2015:

Revenue from the sale of regulatory credits totaled $168.7 million, $216.3 million, and $194.4 million for the years ended December 31, 2015, 2014 and 2013."

Followed by this about the deal it got from Nevada: "As of December 31, 2015, we have earned $19.9 million of transferable tax credits under these agreements. That is just the beginning, for what it is worth, of the actual cash Nevada bribed it with -- in addition to a tax abatement deal that went well beyond anything anyone else might have received.

The company has earned more selling regulatory credits to a captive audience created by government favor, and availing itself of a mind-numbing number tax credits and abatements that no one else (the "oil" industry, or otherwise) gets. ... than it has earned from selling cars! It actually hasn't earned a penny selling cars. Without government largesse and an insane amount of private debt, this lunacy doesn't exist. The fact that I am having this conversation is absurd. THE FUCKING COMPANY KNOWS THAT ITS EXISTENCE DEPENDS ON GOVERNMENT FAVOR. In the risks section of its 10-K a few years ago, it actually wrote this:

These are not the garden-variety tax R&D or plant tax deductions that most industries (oil or otherwise -- and oil doesn't get special treatment relative to dozens of other industries!) have at their disposal -- as much as you are intent on creating a false equivalancy. These are special rules and regulatory schemes -- to the tune of billions of dollars -- that were designed specifically to benefit the EV industry and Tesla in particular. There is little comparison to ANYTHING about the oil industry here.

Bother responding or don't. I'm done, either way. I am not wasting my time anymore. I could staple reality to your forehead and you'd ignore the blood dripping over your nose and call it a "theory." Your googling (links!) actually gave you that Forbes article that made the the OPPOSITE point you wanted -- as you insulted me for being "simplistic" . ... and something random about a petrochemical plant (which you somehow conflated with the oil industry). If that is the kind of silliness you are looking for from me in return, keep looking.