Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by gwright on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @09:07PM
(#19744060)
You have a point about the negative externalities, but insisting on using the word "subsidy" for that concept is just going to confuse people. That isn't the accepted meaning of "subsidy", in casual conversation at least.
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by jwr on Wednesday April 24, 2019 @10:04PM
(#19744392)
Hmm — how else would you call it? As I understand it, future generations are subsidizing the price of our fossil fuels and internal combustion engines, making ICEs artificially cheap by not considering their environmental impact.
Subsidies do not have to be in the form of cash: many come in the form of tax breaks and I would consider this to be one such case.
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by gwright on Thursday April 25, 2019 @12:36PM
(#19749840)
It is just confusing to use the same word to suggest explicit assistance (cash, tax breaks, etc) and "failure to penalize". I guess mathematically they both represent a reduction in cost when compared to an alternative scenario (no subsidy and some sort of tax/fee for the externality) but they are different mechanisms and so it makes sense for them to have different words to describe them if you want to communicate clearly.
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by Consultant32452 on Thursday April 25, 2019 @12:28AM
(#19744980)
It gets far worse when you consider the total cost of wars to protect the flow of oil.
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by camjohnson26 on Thursday April 25, 2019 @01:59AM
(#19745428)
There were still wars before oil was a thing.
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by chopin on Thursday April 25, 2019 @05:08AM
(#19746307)
EVs don't pay carbon taxes either (which they should).
Re:Tesla Posts Big Quarterly Loss as Its Electric-Car Sales Lag
by toomuchtodo on Saturday April 27, 2019 @11:25AM
(#19765983)
You’re arguing for carbon taxes on electrical generation. Entirely agree. This would push coal and natural gas out of the electrical grid generation mix even faster, making EVs even cleaner.
And yet we do not collect that tax, hence heavily subsidizing ICEs. This is credited by our children and grandchildren, who will end up with a massively changed (for the worse) planet.