Tesla latest CA company to diss Golden State
Tesla Motors, the Palo Alto maker of luxury electric cars, is holding its annual stockholder meeting next Tuesday. It will be interesting to see whether CEO Elon Musk announces the two states that will compete in a “bakeoff” to determine where Tesla decides to build its new $5 billion “gigafactory.”
In February, the electric car company listed four states as finalists to be the site of the gigafactory, which will generate an estimated 6,500 jobs. Musk passed over his home state of California for Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and, not surprisingly, business-friendly Texas.
The Brown administration has made a last-ditch effort to get back in the competition. It has suggested Sacramento’s Mather Airport business park – the site of a former U.S. Air Force base – as the perfect location for Tesla’s new facility, which requires a minimum of 500 acres.
During a chat this month with analysts, Musk said the Golden State’s desperate bid to be the site of his company’s gigafactory is “sort of improbable.”
Not the least because Tesla intends to break ground in June on the first of two separate sites competing in its bakeoff. The state that can get pre-production work completed the fastest gets the $5 billion plant, which will produce lithium-ion batteries.
The winning state will need to have all the necessary permits approved by the time Tesla plans to break ground next month. With the onerous requirements of the California Environmental Protection Act (CEQA) and other environmental regulations, Tesla would be lucky to break ground by 2017 – when its battery factory is scheduled to open.
At least some California lawmakers think Musk is morally obliged to build his gigafactory in the Golden State.
“The policies of this state helped build Elon Musk’s company,” Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, told the Sacramento Bee. “It is outrageous that he is looking anywhere than California to build his factory.”
CA subsidies
Indeed, the California Energy Commission gifted Musk $10 million to pay for machinery purchased for Tesla’s Freemont factory. The electric car maker was also exempted from sales and use taxes on $415 million in manufacturing equipment, which saved the company $34.7 million. And Tesla received $625,000 from the state for worker training.
Tesla officials have confirmed the company has had conversations with state officials on the siting of its gigafactory. And it’s safe to say Gov. Brown’s Office of Business and Economic Development is offering Musk more taxpayer subsidies to reject Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Texas in favor of California.
But Musk himself suggests tax breaks and other incentives are not enough to get him to build his battery plant in the Golden State.
While Brown and his staff have “tried to do everything they can,” said Musk, to persuade Tesla to manufacture its electric car batteries here in California, competing states have a “much more streamlined approach” to the permitting process for developments like the Tesla gigafactory.
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“The policies of this state helped build Elon Musk’s company,” Assemblyman Henry Perea, D-Fresno, told the Sacramento Bee. “It is outrageous that he is looking anywhere than California to build his factory.”
Perea is right form a moral and ethical standpoint, but not a business or legal standpoint.
I actually agree with Perea.
The fact is this company would NOT be in business today without government welfare/credits. It would cease to exist. Corporate welfare at it’s finest.
More proof we are no longer a capitalistic nation, and have indeed turned into a banana republic.
The >slight< difference between welfare and "corporate welfare" is that corporate welfare generally produces something tangible and even useful.
The >slight< difference between welfare and "corporate welfare" is that corporate welfare generally produces something tangible and even useful.
Not really, it just puts more profits into the pockets of Big Business and the 1%.
That is an out and out lie. Study after study has concluded that corporate welfare has had no tangible benefit other than further enriching the very wealthy.
links?
Oooh yeah well put Rex. I think tax incentives are ok when they are given to those who have a track record of creating jobs and making a profit. The Gov. needs to stay out of venture capital those guys do a great job and have a much better success rate.
Yeah Poodle’s right— we should never try to R and D things that would make our world better and we should all hail big oil!
Good girl!!
Yeah Poodle’s right— we should never try to R and D things that would make our world better and we should all hail big oil!
Oh Teddy, you are a two-bit bumbling moron with the intellect of a circus chimp.
R&D is PAID FOR BY THE COMPANY you fool, NOT TAXPAYERS. Taxpayers are not getting rich from R&D dollars gifted out to private enterprise via corporate welfare…oh wait..you are a government welfare queen- that model works great for you. Sorry teddy Steals, I forgot, you live and survive on the public welfare queen protocol. My bad 🙂
Poodle….you’re a true piece of work. A below the belt poster…..you deserve shunning!
TY Teddy:)
Let’s see… A manufacturer in California has to deal with high energy costs, high land costs, high labor costs, high taxes, costly environmental regulations, unfriendly unions, etc. Since Tesla already has a factory in Fremont (rather than in a more business friendly state), Musk probably feels he’s already satisfied his moral obligation to California.
CA is for lawyers and government workers, not manufacturers.
Why doesn’t Jerry Brown assemble a commission and have a team of lawyers prepare a report to give to Sacramento and discuss to death for 10 years while paying consultants the whole time?
That would be the best way to get this factory made in CA – and when it opens in 2099, we will all be excited!
Why doesn’t Jerry Brown assemble a commission and have a team of lawyers prepare a report to give to Sacramento and discuss to death for 10 years while paying consultants the whole time
That is exactly what the “Great Park” in Irvine did, and it worked out GREAT!
🙂
That Great Park even in it’s current state is open space and 1000000% better than a dirty airport— I LOVED the GP campaign!!!!
Makes The Ted VERY happy….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
You’re one weird cookie Teddy Steals.
Our Beneficent Master and Ruler Sunbeam should simply demand to take over the company and force it to be built in Calistan.
California has had its day, now in many ways, just like an infected host the parasites of the RAGWUS continue to wonder why it has no more to give. 🙂
Duncey is right!
We
Are
Doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed
I tell ya!
The fact is corporate welfare, be it for Solyndra, Telsa, whomever, it is WRONG.
Government should not be TRYING to pick the winners and losers of tax dollars via welfare (Solyndra proved that)_.
Solyndra “proved” it?
LMAO !!!!
Errr. Yes. You ignorant two bit chump. I mean that in a good way Teddy 🙂
■The Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program has an approximately 97% success rate. As of late July, 2012, Solyndra, Abound Solar and the handful of other DOE-backed renewable energy companies that went bankrupt represented total investments of less than 3% of the entire DOE portfolio. (Source: U.S. Department of Energy, April 2013, http://1.usa.gov/Nv1OeU)
Poor Poodle -Girl, if he says it, it’s wrong ™
LOL..close to ONE BILLION DOLLARS lost and Teddy claims it is peanuts!!!
Gotta love the village idiot!
Educate yourself chump;
“$1 billion loss: Tesla worse than Solyndra for taxpayers”
http://www.wnd.com/2013/05/1-billion-loss-tesla-worse-than-solyndra-for-taxpayers/#YY35epQkWpwu34UT.99
GREEN SCAM: 80% of Green Energy Loans Went to Obama Donors – 19 Companies Went Bust (Video)
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/06/green-scam-80-of-green-energy-loans-went-to-obama-donors-19-companies-went-bust-video/
Tesla shareholders are geographically distributed and have no emotional ties to California, nor should they. They are probably relieved by the upcoming corporate move, probably to Texas, will minimize manipulation by unions, California politics, environmental regulations, water shortages, extremely over-padded power rates, and heavy state personal and corporate taxation burdens. Musk “made hay while the sun was shining” with PayPal, Solar City, and, Tesla, all tied to California high tech crowding atmosphere, with some linked to the state’s wealth transferring utility tariff policies. The California marketplace for such counter-market political waste is now saturated…the low hanging fruit is gone. Further, major business investment decisions are always made on the margin. Past taxpayer contributions via credits etc. do not factor into projecting future earnings. Tesla was a good run for California, although expensive to taxpayers (at best a net wash of taxes), but only someone as foolish as Jerry Brown, or his cronies, would believe it was sustainable.
Dog-doom……. yap yap yap…..when will it end.
There is no sound reason for any lager company to stay in California with all the regulations and taxes that is required to do business here. More power to states like Texas. The only thing we have going for us here in California is the weather. Our politicians are just WHORES!
■The Department of Energy Loan Guarantee Program has an approximately 97% success rate. As of late July, 2012, Solyndra, Abound Solar and the handful of other DOE-backed renewable energy companies that went bankrupt represented total investments of less than 3% of the entire DOE portfolio. (Source: U.S. Department of Energy, April 2013, http://1.usa.gov/Nv1OeU)
Poor Poodle -Girl, if he says it, it’s wrong ™
it’s just this easy!
Another great travel article. Boy….will business be brisk…….just lovin it.
Pack and ship with us. We just expanded our rental yard. Took over some disgruntled doomer’s lot next door who moved his family to upstate West Virginia. That must of been quite a mighty sacrifice…..humidity all summer……mega mosquitos….rabbit ear TV….Mountain Dew signs everywhere…..wearing lop ear hats all winter….ugh!
Will be coming round the mountain when she comes….be coming round the…..she……whatever…
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-0914-hiltzik-20140914-column.html#page=1
All of our politicians are whores.