Tesla Motors Dealing as States Play Factory Poker

His electric cars use vast amounts of fossil fuel to manufacture and to run,
No more fossil fuel needed by Tesla than conventional car manufacturers. and we taxpayers subsidize them as if they are somehow better.
There is a tax credit given to the buyer, (not the seller) who is purchasing an electric vehicle (including golf carts) that ceases July next year. The Government loans to Tesla have already been paid back.

If you want to play the carbon footprint game of electricity vs gas, then you must add in ALL the steps along the process in the gas refinery and compare that against ALL the possible steps in the process of electrical creation.

For me, personally, as our government prevents us from drilling our own oil, and as we are locked in to purchase oil from terrorist supporting nations, I'd rather have a vehicle where I am no longer supporting terrorism.

A really good expose on the myths about the electric car (in particular Tesla) -- which addresses the carbon print argument can be found here:
Fully Charged Episode

That's very easy, the price of manufactured goods and fuel costs is proportional to the amount of fossil fuels used up. The solar panels on my roof required a bunch of fossil fuels to refine raw materials and manufacture finished panels. Likewise the batteries in my basement also counting the recycling of the lead.

The fact is that Tesla has higher manufacturing and operating costs due to the higher amounts of fossil fuel used. All that lithium doesn't arrive magically from nowhere. The electric costs include the fossil fuels with the various transmission and conversion losses. Fossil fuel is very lossy in the engine (70% wasted) but have no transmission losses.

As for the terrorism argument, that is a bit dated. The US crossed over the 50% domestic threshold last year and we are headed in the positive direction.

Lead acid batteries is old (dirty) technology. Lithium-ion based batteries are longer life and highly recyclable.

Not all electric power is produced by fossil fuel: there are far more options to generate electricity: geothermal, solar, wind, hydro-electric etc.

As the US has consistently refused to exploit its own oil supply and have shut down nuclear plants and refused to invest in alternate technologies such as molten salt reactors, then a different approach truly intrigues me. With the added bonus that it can beat a Aston Martin in a straight line.

Can you fill up your car from your solar cells?

Lead acid is better for my crawl space (cheaper, more reliable, safer, much simpler). There are other electric power generation options, but not as many at night. Around Virginia where I live wind power is not good at all and nonexistent at night. Instead we have our wind power transmitted from western MD with losses.

I agree with you completely on nukes. It is the only way you are going to cleanly fill an electric car at night in most locations. Electric cars will make lots of sense at that point.

I disagree about the value of beating an Aston Martin. First of all I drive an old Escape with a stick shift and I get about 30mpg, but it is very underpowered (4 cyl). However I beat any new Tesla hands down for environment friendliness since I have kept an old car running to 120,000 instead of buying a shiny new car. The real way to save energy is to buy quality products and keep them for a long time. The Tesla being so expensive ought to be high quality but the jury is still out on that. The battery replacement alone (32k) will cost a lot more than my car. Valuing acceleration over function is not my preference.

Filling a Tesla during the daytime works if you happen to work in the desert. To get a 50% charge during a sunny day you need 50kWh. Solar panels yield 10W per square foot. Assuming 5 hours of perfect sun (or 8 hours at an angle) you need 1000 square feet of solar panels around/over your car. That's a lot of space not typical to most employment locations. Otherwise charging uses fossil. Charging at home overnight uses fossil.

So let me get this straight. Tesla wants to build a factory in state X. Taxes on that factory would be $20 Million (hypothetically). Tesla makes a deal and will only pay $10 Million. The state gets $10 million of tax revenue they otherwise would not have, plus the wage taxes from several thousands of people who now have jobs.

What is it Sams 5 and Dime and Ma & Pa’s shop are picking up exactly?

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