I should start out by saying that the Tesla is a beautiful automobile, and it’s way ahead of the competition. That said, I don’t see any reason for the taxpayers to be subsidizing Tesla (or any of the other EV makers), particularly when the electricity that is used most places to charge these cars up comes from fossil-fueled generating plants. Furthermore, this pipe dream government has about an all-electric auto fleet is just BS. If everyone had a Tesla today, our electrical grid would collapse from the overload. Then there’s the issue of the further subsidization of these vehicles by virtue of the fact that they escape the fuel taxes that we use to maintain our roads on which they also drive.
If you really care about what’s happening, take a moment and look around for information on depreciation.
When the zealots wave hands over their heads and scream about how electricity is cheaper per mile than gasoline, they never, ever compare depreciation to conventional cars.
But that's the point. The reality is, that no POS leftist trash in California understands, that the power for EVs will come from nukes.
And that to me is a beautiful dream that will make the Arabs into the insignificant paupers they really are: electric cars in the U.S. powered by our own nuclear generating plants, divorcing us from oil politics.
And this would drive the price of oil to 1960s levels: the inflation adjusted equivalent of 25 cents a gallon (it's almost there now due to fracking and exploration, but...how bout $10/barrel?!).
The Palo Verde Nuclear Generating plant in Arizona currently operates at 1/3 of its original licensed capacity. That was a political decision because of 3 Mile Island. PV now provides 15% of the power to Los Angeles and more to Phoenix and Tucson.
Expand PV to it's original 10 unit capacity and you have enough electricity to power cars and homes and businesses throughout the West. Add two or three more such plants inland and you complete the requirement for the entire country.
Best of all, the moron trash here in California will have to pay for it to Americans in the hated interior. California will not build such plants and preen themselves on being "nuke free".
“I should start out by saying that the Tesla is a beautiful automobile”
that may be true from a distance, but the fit and finish issues with those cars are myriad and not even close to what we’ve come to expect from Honda and Toyota:
https://www.google.com/search?q=Tesla+fit+and+finish&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
Tesla is not ‘way ahead of the competition’. The exact real dollars for any Tesla can get any of several or many competitors that are every bit or more impressive an overall vehicle.
The cars available at the $75k-$145k price are numerous and almost all spectacular. Even the rare sub-$40k Tesla 3 has attractive competition by everyone from Acura to Volvo.
Tesla is an electric car. It is what electric cars have always been; a quirky indulgence.
Well put. If I had that kind of cash (plus the $90K or so estimated cost of a photovoltaic roof to charge it — there’s no reason taxpayers and electric company customers should foot my fuel bill) I’d be driving one now.
There’s reportedly a $6000 destination charge that is mandatory, so the $35K Model 3 is actually the $41K Model 3, and the options often desired by buyers lift the sale price another $5-$6K. Meanwhile, a raft of established makers are coming on with new hybrid and all-electric models, and the factory bottlenecks are not going to get fixed. Then there are the mineral sources needed for the batteries, lack of local service in many places, and eventually angry shareholders...