California subsidized every Tesla sold. I'm not complaining about it but it should be on record that California helped to give Tesla a boost. It was definitely the right move.
I can't think of another state in this country where Tesla would have thrived nearly as well as California. Do you think Tesla would have done well in Texas back in 2003? All those oil guzzlers would have laughed Elon Musk out of the state.
Technically that was an "electric car" subsidy, not a Tesla subsidy. But I am pretty sure the lion share of those 200,000 cars were Teslas judging by whose driving in the carpool lane with single occupancy, so it's probably fair to say it was a de facto Tesla subsidy. But do we really blame Tesla for other manufacturers not being able to take advantage? That seems a bit unfair too.
Yeah, a bit of a free rider problem where California has now paid to bootstrap the US electric car industry, to the whole country's benefit, and won't get quite the tax payment rewards for their investment that they are due. Just lots of smug scorn from Elon and the commenters here.
They'll still get sales taxes, corp taxes, and income taxes from people working at those companies... it's not a "free rider" problem - CA made an investment and it's paying off...
