Hybrid Cars -- a scam

[TimG]

Doesn’t successful capitalism today require pressure put on Government?

There is a difference between putting pressure on the government to reduce regulation and stop interfering and negotiating backroom deals that maximize the profit for your company at the expense of your competitors. The latter is what Tesla is doing and it is not defensible if one cares about free markets.

I’ve no qualms with taxpayer money being used to seed the development of both space and “Green” technology……I see both as a direct investment in ones own national security.

It is NOT taxpayer money in the case of Tesla - it is the competitors of Telsa that are being forced fund Telsa via regulations that have been manipulated to benefit Tesla. Do you really have no problem with this? Edited June 15, 2014 by TimG

[Derek 2.0]

There is a difference between putting pressure on the government to reduce regulation and stop interfering and negotiating backroom deals that maximize the profit for your company at the expense of your competitors. The latter is what Tesla is doing and it is not defensible if one cares about free markets.

Monopolistic practices are hardly new.

It is NOT taxpayer money in the case of Tesla - it is the competitors of Telsa that are being forced fund Telsa via regulations that have been manipulated to benefit Tesla. Do you really have no problem with this?

What regulations are those?

[Wilber]

But are the cars tested in the same way? That's what's important. It allows us to compare the fuel efficiency of vehicles, all other things being equal. The mileage it gets in the test might not be the same mileage you get, but then the mileage you get won't be the same as the mileage I get. Eliminating the variability between drivers, geography, etc. and just comparing the vehicles to each other will tell you the vehicle specific variability in mileages.

The manufacturers are supposed to use the standard test for their published numbers. It is up to the respective government agency to make sure they do. They are only really good for comparison not actual mileage.

[TimG]

Monopolistic practices are hardly new.

The correct word is "rent seeking" and they are very common. The question is whether a CEO that engages in them is to be admired or detested or some where in between. With Musk the rent seeking practices push him over to the "detested" side and that is no mitigated by giving away patents.

What regulations are those?

I gave you a link - it is a complex scheme where California manipulates the rules to give Telsa extra credits for features on its cars which don't really exist. When other manufacturers complained the CARB board agreed to change to rules but only after allowing Telsa to bank a large number of these unearned credits for future sales to its competitors that sell a broader range of vehicles.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/12/21/the-tesla-battery-swap-is-the-hoax-of-the-year/

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/12/analysis-tesla-may-have-made-over-100-million-off-the-carb-enabled-battery-swap-scheme/

Edited June 16, 2014 by TimG

[cybercoma]

The manufacturers are supposed to use the standard test for their published numbers. It is up to the respective government agency to make sure they do. They are only really good for comparison not actual mileage.

This. Yes.

[overthere]

but still so far ahead of any other available technology in providing clean energy that it's barely even worth mentioning.

Great solution if: there are hydro opportunities available; and you don't live upstream, downstream or anywhere in the area that will be flooded and otherwise devastated by the gross manipulation of major ecosystems. Ask the 100 million Chinese forcibly relocated recently. Ask the First Nations of James Bay how they like it.

[Bonam]

You can't get energy without affecting the system from which you are getting that energy. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Solar, wind, and tidal energy sources also all affect the ecosystems they are in. If you want energy, then you have to live with some level of disruption that getting that energy will cause.

[Moonbox]

Great solution if: there are hydro opportunities available; and you don't live upstream, downstream or anywhere in the area that will be flooded and otherwise devastated by the gross manipulation of major ecosystems. Ask the 100 million Chinese forcibly relocated recently. Ask the First Nations of James Bay how they like it.

100 million? You sure you don't want to check those numbers...maybe divide them by like...20-50?

Anyways, sure people have to move away from flood plains when a hydro project is built. The benefit of the project, however, usually vastly outweigh the consequences. I highly doubt the Chinese government fairly treated the millions of displaced families along the dam's flood plain, but that's more an issue of a corrupt and oppressive regime.

As for the James Bay project, there were maybe 5000 Cree natives that lived ANYWHERE near the project, and much fewer still that lived along the hydro project's flood plain and needed to relocate. The Quebec government was also forced to negotiate long reaching settlements with them.

People who complain about things like the James Bay project are the people who are going to complain about everything, all the time, no matter what.

[overthere]

So you support the steamrolling of the rights of indigenous people for your interpretation of 'the greater good'?

You may have a career in the communications at Enbridge in your future.

My point is that all energy production has serious costs, and that includes hydro power. . How would you feel about a big dam on the Speed River? Ontario Hydro may help you with some of your losses. Maybe.