The free market of automobile manufacturing in which the USA has propped up both GM and Ford, and in the past Chrysler? The one in which the Japanese government is carefully intertwined with their automotive industry?

The government is a customer of space x but they still compete against other companies for that business.

The French government is also a big shareholder of Renault and Volkswagen is partially owned by the regional government where they’re domiciled, if I’m not mistaken, plus the German government itself always putting the interests of the German big 3 (MB, BMW, VW) ahead of almost everything else, even their citizens’ health (see the tax incentives given to diesel vehicles for the last couple of decades).

Correct. Also a large part of the reason why we still don't have universal speed limits on Autobahnen.

That‘s simply wrong. We don‘t have a speed limit because the majority of the people would hate that.

On the other hand, German carmakers have a longstanding gentleman‘s agreement to electronically limit their cars to 250 km/h. Seems they can live with limits.

> We don‘t have a speed limit because the majority of the people would hate that.

That prompted me to look for polls.

> (2015-10-15) 56% of those polled would support a speed limit of 150 km/h on all German Autobahnen

Representative survey by YouGov, source: http://www.faz.net/aktuell/politik/inland/umfrage-mehrheit-d...

> (2018-01-26) A slim majority of Germans (52%) supports a general speed limit of 130 km/h.

Representative survey by Forsa, source: https://www.tz.de/auto/tempolimit-autobahn-knappe-mehrheit-d...

> (date unclear) "Are you for or against a general speed limit of 120 km/h?" - 35% for, 62% against

Source: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/258757/umfrag... (they won't disclose source, survey method or date unless you cough up your personal data)

So it appears that a speed limit would be supported by the majority if it starts out reasonably high. (That's the same way the Swiss did it: They started with a relatively high speed limit, and then lowered it as the majority mindset shifted towards higher energy efficiency.)

Wow 250kmh. May as well be limited to C like the rest of the world's auto makers at that speed

Few cars reach that, of course.

It just takes a little longer.

Is the claim here that with a speed limit, the business of the car companies would suffer? How so?

The reality, I think, is that there is sufficient support for the speedlimit-free Autobahn from Germans.

It's a national security interest that the United States has a automotive industry that pushes meaningful (3+ million vehicles a year domestically) volume.

There is absolutely nothing special about a Tesla BEV other than that unlike most automakers, it's extremely unprofitable. Go read Tesla's financial statements.

Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support, including state and federal EV rebates for buyers of its cars (roughly $300 million), an extremely large handout from the state of Nevada ($1.3 billion), a large handout from New York ($1 billion), handouts from US Government ($500 million), carbon credits ($520 billion as of 2015). Collectively, Tesla's government support actually exceeds the government's bailout of Ford by several orders of magnitude...

GM and Ford were propped up by the government during the Great Recession to protect tens of thousands of jobs. Both companies have since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy.

My understanding is that in 2009 Ford rejected the bailout the US automakers were offered (taking instead a loan which they are still repaying, through 2022).

GM was effectively nationalized (at a reported cost of $11b) and the creditors lost their shirts.

Ford received a different bailout.

Also, I mixed up GM and Chrysler on which of them repaid the loan.

> Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government supporting, including EV rebates for buyers of its cars.

All automakers are eligible for this support...if they build electric cars. Ford and Tesla are the only automakers to have never declared bankruptcy. These are tiresome arguments that hold no water.

Which is why I edited my comment to provide more detail. It's not just the EV rebates, Tesla has also received substantial government handouts; on the order of billions.

Can you provide specifics?

> [GM has] since repaid those loans...though GM discharged much of its loan through bankruptcy.

What did you mean to say here?

That GM eliminated (not repaid) the loan through bankruptcy?

Or that GM discharged the loan then repaid it anyway?

Bankruptcy means, among other things, selling any remaining valuables to pay lenders, full or in part.

So in theory a loan can be completely paid off through a bankruptcy. In the case of GM, it did not happen, IIRC.

False. The US government lost over $11 billion on the GM bailout.

https://www.thebalance.com/auto-industry-bailout-gm-ford-chr...

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autos-gm-treasury-idUSBRE...

Yeah I mixed up GM and Chrysler on which of them repaid their bailout.

>Tesla has also received a substantial amount of government support

Yes, the message here is almost all large industries in all countries receive substantial government support.

The amount of goverment subsidy for fossil fuels that normal cars run on, for instance, is much higher than for renewables.

NASA certainly did save SpaceX early on with some funding and contracts, which SpaceX fully delivered on at a competitive price.

I'm not going to look it up right now, but for now and the past several years, most of SpaceX's income has come from sources outside of NASA. That is, commercial launches.

By my count, there have been 25 US Government (including NASA) launches and 38 other launches - about 40% US Government, 60% other.

Ref: https://www.spacex.com/missions

That may be true, but the stability comes from it being privately held -- the SpaceX stock doesn't swing wildly every time some news about their competition with Boeing is released.

A profitable company has no need to be excessively concerned about its stock price. Of course, at some point, shareholders might consider putting on pressure, but that doesn't really seem to have happened even with Tesla. And in closely held companies, that kind of pressure is much stronger — it's not like Musk has $70B of spare change in his couch pillows, so he'll always have to deal with co-owners.

Most importantly, the co-owners are less likely to ask why a particular step to maximize profits in this quarter hasn't been done. To say nothing of activist shareholders who theoretically could sue; such things killed a few still-profitable companies, and Tesla isn't one yet.

Boeing is publicly traded under the ticker BA...

I meant the SpaceX stock doesn't swing wildly every time news like this comes out:

https://www.investopedia.com/news/spacex-will-fly-astronauts...

Or this:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/nasa-commercial-crew...

(I clarified my original comment)

SpaceX is privately held, unlike Tesla.

Yes, that's the point.

In which "free" market are you "prohibited" from selling your product directly to customers? [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_US_dealership_disputes

Liquor.

Depending upon one's state of residence, the liquor market can be anything but "free".

(Just off the top of my head, tiffs between Costco and distributors when Costco wanted to sell liquor.)

In many US states, liquor sale is not a free market.

   isn't that successful there?

What?

“Hasn’t yet made any money there” would be more accurate.

>...isn't all that successful in the free market?

That's the intended question. Though I don't know what GP's definition of "success" is.

> and isn't that successful there?

Having 2 years worth of production in the backlog is not successful?

Ok then.