At least a sizable chunk of which is going into the pockets of wealthy Google engineers, if what's to be read in this thread is true. Well, I guess they're paying the taxes in the first place...
On the other hand, if the subsidy makes the subsidized industries lazy and encourages political competition - lobbying for bigger subsidies - rather than technological competition in this and other industries, leaving us stuck subsidizing inefficient dead-end technologies rather than moving on to new ideas from better smaller firms that didn't have the clout to get subsidized, then it will NOT be the most efficient use of $7,500 the government ever paid.
Though it won't be the least efficient, it'll be right down there. (Subsidizing and "protecting" steelmakers and automakers in the past pretty much doomed those industries to stop being innovative or competitive on the world market.)
You got the logic right, but flipped the actors. The state isn't subsidizing electric cars, it's subsidizing oil and internal combustion engine cars. Nobody ever paid for the pollution and damage caused. The result is that we have been basing transportation on burning dead dinosaurs for over 100 years yet, and there has not been a single new car company in the US for that same period (until Tesla).
If you are looking for a very rough approximation of what a gasoline car needs to cost, scroll down to where someone explains the pricing in Norway.
> we have been basing transportation on burning dead dinosaurs for over 100 years yet, and there has not been a single new car company in the US for that same period (until Tesla).
Where did you get that last claim from? You seem to be missing all the caveats that would be necessary to make it true. Did you perhaps really mean to say something like: there hasn't been a single successful new company (for some definition of "success") in the last X years that survived until today without getting bought by a larger firm? Because the thing you actually did say isn't true.
Unless you can come up with a way to argue that, say, The DeLorean Motor Company wasn't a "new car company" founded in the last "over 100 years". And do the same for a dozen others of less renown (eg, the Muntz Car Company)
How can you be sure? A bunch of rich Valley workers getting $10,000 rebates on luxury cars is the "most" efficient use of tax money? (barney54 was right: There's another $2,500 free from California.)
I know you're exaggerating for effect, but when has such a scheme ever worked to bring a new technology mainstream? The government didn't need to give you a tax credit to buy a PC.
I suspect it would be much more efficient to slowly, predictably ramp up gasoline or carbon taxes, offset with, say, lower payroll taxes. Effectively no cost to the government, and it lets the market decide how best to reduce emissions.
> it would be much more efficient to ramp up gasoline or carbon taxes, offset with lower payroll taxes
Maybe, but you are comparing "it would be better to do this optimal thing which hasn't actually happened and may be politically hard to make happen" to "this thing that actually did happen was worthwhile". Both can be true.
Those rich Valley workers, with help, are funding the core tech development and manufacturing capacity that will lead to lower prices for the rest of the world.
The government didn't need to give tax credits for PCs because they directly funded much of that research via research grants and there were more immediate uses for PCs in the corporate and military world. Corporations aren't about to buy fleets of electric cars.
