

Tesla wants a piece of the bailout...wants taxpayers to pay to build luxury cars - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/18/tesla-wants-a-piece-of-the-hypothetical-auto-bailout-fund/

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pg
A bit of a harsh headline. They're only starting with luxury cars because they
have to. In fact their m.o. is rather Robin Hoodlike: to use the money of rich
sports car buyers to fund the development of technology that can then be used
in cheaper cars. Which is what the internal combustion car industry did too.

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alex_c
At this point, it would be irresponsible for Tesla, as a company, NOT to ask
for money from the government.

Hey, everyone else is (hypothetically) getting some, why not jump on the gravy
train? At least they have the alternative energy thing going for them.

Whether the government should give them money or not is a different discussion
entirely (and strangely affected by the simple choice of words between
"research" and "bailout"), but I see absolutely nothing outrageous about Tesla
asking.

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helveticaman
Right on. This reminds me of how TJ Rodgers, of Cypress Semiconductors,
defended his lobbying by quoting Milton Friedman; "It's OK to play by the
rules of a game, even if you disagree with them."

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schoudha
This makes sense to me. Detroit has failed and there is no data that shows
they can innovate.

America doesn't need to bail out the big three, it needs to ensure that the
next generation of automobiles are built here and competitive in the global
market.

I see no reason why the government should not consider investing the entire
industry as opposed to 3 failed companies.

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scott_s
_Cars_ used to be luxury items. If they were to receive money, I doubt the
rationale would be to make more $100,000 sports cars.

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vaksel
unless they can promise a 20-25K car for that investment, the gov't should
tell them to take a hike

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rksprst
If you disapprove of what the government is doing, go vote and tell the
government to take a hike.

